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TWO DRAMATIC POEMS 



BY 



V 



MENELLA BUTE SMEDLEY 

it 

AUTHOR OF 

'LADY GRACE' 'QUEEN ISABEL' 

ETC. 



32 




|Tonbon 

MACMILLAN AND CO. 

1874 

All rights reserved 



5b a; 3 



LONDON : PRINTED BY 
SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE 
AND PARLIAMENT STREET 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

Blind Love : A Dramatic Poem in Five Acts . i 



Cyril : Four Scenes from a Life . . . 197 
Sonnet : Love for the Young . . . -337 

Sonnet: Bishop Patteson 338 

A Face from the Past 339 

Lines on the Greek Massacre .... 341 
He Preached to the Spirits in Prison ' . . 345 



BLIND LOVE : 

A DRAMATIC POEM, IN FIVE ACTS. 



PERSONS REPRESENTED. 



Damer Grey. 

Raymond, his son, blind for many years (engaged to Hope). 

Vernon, in love with Hope. 

Carlton, a Surgeon. 

f Damer Grey's orphan nieces ; Hope having been 
HOPE, I brought up in his house, but AviCE, the daughter of 
AviCE I a ^ter who married beneath her, liaving only lately 

L come to reside in his family. 



ACT I. 

Scene I. — A Garden. 

Enter Raymond, conducted by Hope. 

hope 
Will you rest here ? 

RAYMOND 

A little further on ; 
I want to feel the green beneath my feet, 
To reach yon lilies if I stretch my hand, 
To be quite sure that where I turn my face 
The steady sunbeams walk across the lake ; 
Are we right now? 

HOPE 

Aye, to an inch. How well 
Your fancy measures ! 

B 2 



4 BLIND LOVE. act i. 

RAYMOND 

O, my certainty ! 
My grasp is stronger than your glance. I work 
Like a poor prisoner, scanning through and through 
His little stock of unfamiliar words 
Till they become a language. Step by step, 
Testing remembrances, collecting facts, 
Resolving doubts, I pass, slow, tranquil, sad, 
And undisturbed by beauty or by fear, 
Regions of wonder and appeal, where you, 
Beset, enchanted, tempted, checked, compelled, 
Gaze, linger, and learn nothing. 

HOPE 

Say it not ! 

RAYMOND 

How? Tears in that true voice {touches her cheek). 

And in those eyes ! 
O, how should eyes that see shed any tears ! 
What ails you ? 

HOPE 

Nothing but the pang of words. 
You break my heart, not meaning it. I know 



scene i. BLIND LOVE. \ 

All that you lose and all that I possess ; 
There's not an hour of our unequal day 
When I forget that hard comparison ; 
The thought lies patient in my soul ; the word 
Wounds like a weapon. 

RAYMOND 

This my pain, in you 
Becomes my healing. When you weep for me 
You draw my tears away — my selfish heart 
Beholds and comforts its reflected grief 
And then forgets it for a little while 
As if it were another's. Therefore, sweet, 
Grudge not your gentle remedy, but give 
Like a flower, drawing raindrops to its root 
And giving blossoms to the sky. 

HOPE 

I give 
Myself, you know it. Whatsoe'er in me 
Has force or help, being mine must needs be yours ; 
Would it were better ! Take me as I am, 
A trinket for your neck, not even a gem, 
Only a keepsake ! 



6 BLIND LOVE. act i. 

RAYMOND 

Thus you play for ' no ' 
And win it ; ah, no trinket for my neck, 
Staff for my hand — a blind man's metaphor 
With twice the truth of fact ! Come, change the 

strain 
And tell me of the day. 

HOPE 

The day is fresh 
As the first made — a new experiment 
That wonders at itself — this early sky 
Is vague and tender as an infant's love 
When it cries c father ; to each face it meets : 
There may be clouds to come ; methinks they lurk 
Under the fields of primrose light, not showing 
Their grey crests to the sun ; biding their time 
With that slow air which trembles in the woods 
Full of such whispered threats and promises 
' Trust me ' and ' trust me not ' that no man knows 
Which shall achieve fulfilment; all things wait 
Upon the lips of Time, till he pronounce 
The sentence of the day, < be fair or foul/ 



scene i. BLIND LOVE. 

So severing in a moment dark from light ; 
Meantime the hues of heaven and earth put on 
A passion and a sweetness, as of those 
Who think they shall die young, and so are set 
To do their utmost with their little span ; 
I did not know suspense was beautiful 
Till now. 

RAYMOND 

You paint me nothing. Try again, 
The weather is not vaguer than your talk ; 
I want no poem, but a catalogue. 

HOPE 

Thus then again. Just at your feet, the grass 
Hides yet some scattered dewdrops and is bright ; 
I read the landscape by this key, and trace 
A dew-perspective to its farthest bound 
In silvered lights and blue transparent shades 
Sprinkled with morning ; and the rounded edge 
Of woods, and all the melting downward lines 
Which prove the tender haze I cannot see. 
On every branch of these near pines, the light 
Lies like a stroke of frost ; black underneath • 



8 BLIND LOVE. act i. 

Between, the warm tree-colour burns its way, 
But all the gathered sheaves of leafage keep 
A strange moon-lustre of their own ; the lake 
Is a blank tremulous glitter, touched and flecked 
With shadows of invisible reeds ; beyond, 
Stretches the folded distance, lucent, pale, 
And tranquil as the breadths of holy thought 
Whereon a saint reposes ere he dies. 

RAYMOND 

Right — in the distance only dwells Repose, 
Near us we count the changes. No events ? 
Has the day's work begun for us alone ? 
Is all the world asleep ? 

HOPE 

Yon watchful spire . 
Rings out its hymn scarce audible for us, 
And tangled in the murmur of the wheel 
Where the deft mill spins water 

Raymond {interrupting) 

Nay, no sounds ! 
I am your teacher there. In every note 
I hear a hundred shades and feel them all, 



scene i. BLIND LOVE. 9 

Divining whence they rise and what they mean, 
And how they blend themselves for general ears, 
Rough unisons to them, to me a store 
Of possible symphonies ; a plot, a web, 
With all its threadlets separate in my hand. 
What else ? 

HOPE 

Upon the lake a speck — dark — definite, 
No shadow but a coming boat. It cuts 
The sunshine like a new resistless thought 
Passing through severed day dreams to its goal. 
Now could I fancy, love, that you and I 
Were two poor prisoners, watching anxiously 
A freight of doom or freedom. Shall we say 
That if it pass the stair it carries doom, 
But if it pause there, freedom? 

RAYMOND 

As you will. 
{Aside) She treads on truth, not knowing. {Aloud) 

Give account ; 
Where is this destiny ? 

HOPE 

Beneath the limes ; 
Her prow is to the stair ; nay, but she turns ; 



io BLIND LOVE. act i. 

She mocked us with a brittle chance, which fell 
Before we grasped it. We must set ourselves 
To face the worst — she passes. 

RAYMOND 

By heaven's light, 
Which I may never see, she shall not pass ! 
Look and be sure ! 

HOPE 

Why, what a voice of fire ! 
You play too fiercely. 

RAYMOND 

Has she passed the stair ? 

HOPE 

I told you — no, she cheats, — she tacks again ; 
Love, you are right — she lands ! 

Raymond {clasping her) 

Freedom and Hope ! 



scene II. BLIND LOVE. n 

Scene II. 
Raymond — Hope — Avice. 

Enter Avice. 

avice 
I came to summon you to breakfast, friends, 
And I trod softly, not to break your dreams 
Of ceaseless interchange of endless vows ; 
I find you shouting like a populace. 
What is the matter ? 

RAYMOND 

O, vast ignorance ! 
We change our vows with ' tumult of acclaim ' 
As if we were in Paradise. 

AVICE 

You mock me 
As is your custom. Why not say at once 
You will not tell me what you shouted for ? 



12 BLIND LOVE. act i. 

RAYMOND 

Unreasoning goddess ! Said you not on Tuesday 
You did not, would not, could not, know one phrase 
Or fragment of Love's grammar? Can you judge 
Whether I mock or not, explaining it ? 

AVICE 

Why ( goddess,' sir 

RAYMOND 

Because you cannot reason : 
Women, we know, are reasoning animals. 

AVICE 

The worse for them since they consort with men. 

RAYMOND 

A good retort ! Say it again. 



AVICE 

I know 
You must hear oft before you understand. 



RAYMOND 

Ah, for that cause you are so sweetly zealous 
In talking to me always. Now I see ! 



scene II. BLIND LOVE. 13 

avice {angry) 
I am sure I never wish to talk to you. 

RAYMOND 

Martyr, how nobly you deny yourself. 

HOPE 

O, Raymond, do not teaze her ! 

AVICE 

Let it pass. 
He has no power to teaze me. 

Raymond (imitating her voice) to Hope 

Let him talk, 
He knows how much I like it ; (in his own voice) why 

I told you 
Only last night how thoroughly she likes me ! 

AVICE 

Did he say so ? Did he ? I charge you, tell me ! 
Hope, did he say so when I was not by ? 
And did you suffer it ? 



14 BLIND LOVE. act i. 

HOPE 

Indeed, dear cousin, 
We would not hurt you by a word. 

AVICE 

Be honest 
And face my question, do not fence with it ; 
If this be how you spend your tete-a-tetes 
I'm near to scorning you. Why should you care, 
You who would have us think you all the world 
Each to the other, what another thinks 
Of either ? Does your sentiment grow flat 
And must you spice it with a slander ? Fie ! 
You flourish forth your banners of romance, 
Devotion, grandeur, high bewilderment, 
And in their shelter, when we think you sitting 
Like angels, smoothing down each other's plumes, 
You are but pecking at a poor girl's name 
Like very common sparrows. I am proud 
To be a dunce, below the elements 
Of such a science. 

HOPE 

Will you listen ? 



scene II. BLIND LOVE. 15 

RAYMOND 

Tut ! 
She cannot. Take it not so gravely, Hope ; 
Make life a jest, a battle, or a dream, 
Never a sermon ! I can hear the laugh 
Under this rage. 

HOPE 

It is a pain to me 
That she should think we spoke of her unkindly. 

AVICE 

Why do you speak of me at all ? 

RAYMOND 

The theme 
Is tempting. Teach us (since you know so well 
What lovers should not say), teach us our rules ; 
How should we talk ? 

AVICE 

O, I can criticise 
What I would never practise. Love should talk 
Oi nothing but itself, because, being blind, 
It reaches only that which it can feel, 



1 6 BLIND LOVE. act i. 

And should discuss no further. (To Hope.) Why do 

you touch me ? 
I said no harm. 

HOPE 

'Tis nothing. Let it pass. 

RAYMOND 

I know her meaning and will read it to you. 

HOPE 

Nay, do not. 

RAYMOND 

But I will. (To Avice.) She's such a despot 
As would maim languages, and sweep from all 
That dreadful word which means the thing I am. 
You said that Love was blind, and so have sinned 
Scaring me with an image of myself — 
Ah, silly Hope ! Ere I can be reminded 
I must forget. 

HOPE 

O, if but for one hour 
I could beguile you to forget your grief 
No victor on his birthday, sunned and wreathed 



scene ii. BLIND LOVE. 17 

With a land's homage, were so satisfied 
With glory as my heart. 

AVICE 

I am here too long ; 
I can encounter mockery with scorn 
And do it sweetly; when you lecture me, 
I can be gay and talk of something else, 
As birds would, if a choir sang psalms to them ; 
But when you come to turns of sentiment, 
To ploughing up with sighs your tender souls 
And bandying mutual sugarplums — I'm gone. 
Sweet friends, enjoy yourselves, for Time is short, 
And Love is lengthy as an Indian calm 
To ships which fain would be at home. Farewell, 
Joy keep you both ! [Exit Avice. 

RAYMOND 

There goes a little shrew ! 
And yet you say that all men flock to her, 
Prizing her frown above a wealth of smiles. 

HOPE 

Her words are harder than her heart. 

c 



iS BLIND LOVE. act i. 

RAYMOND 

They need be, 
Else were her heart a nut to crack the steel ; 
I would not try it 

HOPE 

She is beautiful 
With more than woman's beauty. Every line 
True as cold marble, clothed upon with light 
Flushing with change and colour that would charm 
In common lineaments ; she moves before us 
And we believe her not, but every day 
Learn her anew, so far her actual face 
Exceeds remembrance or conception. 

RAYMOND 

Pshaw ! 
Say't not to me. I know a little face 
As far before hers as your speech is. Hark, 
I'll tell you fairy tales. Say that a wand 
Should wake these sleepers (touching his eyes), and give 

back the dawn 
To this forgetful darkness, setting me 
Once more a man among the multitudes 



scene ii. BLIND LOVE, 19 

And capable as they ; if then a host 

Of ranged aspects like a theatre 

Watched my first flash of sight, I, with that flash, 

Would seize your face among them, recognised 

By its own lovely meaning. 

HOPE 

No, revealed 
By love to love. I do not doubt you, dear, 
Yet is she as far fairer than myself, 
As some vast lily than the thready moss 
Under your foot unseen ; and yet I'll trust you ; 
You could not miss me, for your heart knows mine 
Familiarly, as friends that live together 
Know the least accent of each other's tones 
Ere they discern a word. I am sure of you. 

RAYMOND 

Now go, you meek supremacy — the day 
Speeds, and our father chides. 

HOPE 

Will not you come ? 

RAYMOND 

I'll follow. 

C2 



20 BLIND LOVE. act i. 

HOPE 
But I cannot leave you here. 

RAYMOND 

What — here — where every grass-blade knows my foot ! 
Come, I am fixed. 

HOPE 

Dear Raymond, let me stay. 

RAYMOND 

Not a new minute ! Such poor drifts of freedom, 

And purpose , as my sorrow leaves to me 

I'll hoard and use — you would not grudge me them 

If you could count their fewness. I am bent 

To find my way alone, and please myself 

With hollow fancies that I know as much 

As men with eyes. You linger? 

HOPE 

Nay, I am gone. 
\Exit Hope* She remains close by the entrance, 
watching. 



scene ii. BLIND LOVE. 21 

RAYMOND 

Now, stay ! I hardly trust her. All her life 
Is full of tender frauds that cheat her friends 
Out of their right to suffer. If she went 
Fairly, she should be out of call — I'll try. 
What! Hope! 

Re-e?iter Hope instantly. 

HOPE 

Here Raymond — are you hurt ? 

RAYMOND 

Ah, traitress ! 
You meant to lurk and watch about my steps 
Like a deceitful angel. You shall promise ; 
I know you will not break your word — a woman 
Lies seldom with her tongue. Give me your word 
That you'll go thoroughly. 

HOPE 

Well— if I must. 

RAYMOND 

And put that foolish trouble from your voice. 



22 BLIND LOVE, act i. 



Do not be angry. 



HOPE 
RAYMOND 

Do not make me so. 

HOPE 



Not for a world. 



RAYMOND 

You do it for a whim. 
Now would you welcome some swift accident 
To teach me my dependence. 

HOPE 

O, for shame ! 
Tis a man's charity to spare the fear 
Which he despises. Only for myself 
I lingered ; now I leave you faithfully, 
Be kind and follow soon — I shall scarce breathe 
Till I receive you safe. \Exit Hope. 

RAYMOND 

So then at last 
The moment ripens to my grasp ! I hear 
The ruffled shingle and the parting fern 
As that quick foot springs upward. Are you there? 



scene in. BLIND LOVE, 33 

Scene III. 
Raymond — to him Carlton. 

carlton {taking Raymond's hand and looking 
earnestly at him) 

How fare you? Am I welcome? 



RAYMOND 

I am as one 
Who having pined across the long bare sea 
Comes passionate and homesick to the shore 
But dares not set his foot there lest he hear 
That some dear place is empty, and for him 
The fair familiar pleasantness of earth 
Become a desolation. 



CARLTON 

You do well 
To face the worst beforehand, trying thus 
The strength of weapons which you may not need. 



24 BLIND LOVE. ACT I. 

RAYMOND 

I know their strength. There is no worst for him 

Who has not seen the sun for twenty years. 

Say that you fail — your time, your skill, your hope 

Are wasted, and your wreath must lose a rose ; 

Full bitter are the tears of baffled men 

Though shameless their defeat. Pity yourself ! 

But if you say to me those dreadful words 

6 Be blind for ever ! I can do no more !' 

You do not thrust me to that outer dark, 

You leave me only where I was before, 

Where I am quite at home. 

CARLTON 

So would I have you ; 
Strong, tranquil, ready. I may tell you now 
All things are ripe for our experiment 
Time, practice, place. If you can go with me 
To-day 

RAYMOND 

I am ready now. 

CARLTON 

Why, so am I. 



scene in. BLIND LOVE. 25 

RAYMOND 

But, Carlton, when we talked of this before 
You told me of a man, blind like myself 
For twenty years, and by the same disease, 
Whose case at every point so matched with mine 
That if you tried your remedy on him 
And after came to me, we might be likened 
To vessels measured in one mould, and you 
Filling the first with hesitating hand 
Can estimate the second to a drop. 
Did you not tell me this ? 

CARLTON 

TIs true. I did. 

RAYMOND 

And have you tried this remedy on him ? 

CARLTON 

I tried it. 

RAYMOND 

The result ? 



To tell you. 



CARLTON 

Almost I fear 



26 BLIND LOVE. act i. 

RAYMOND 

You have told it. He has heard 
That sentence of irrevocable doom. 
Tell me it was a chance, that prizes come 
Most surely after blanks, that difference 
Lurks undetected in the likest things, 
And I, despairing not from his mishap, 
May find a fairer close — but, tell the truth, 
He shall be blind for ever. 

CARLTON 

Man, he sees ! 
[Raymond starts and covers his face with his hands. 
Why have you forced it from me ? I was bent 
To hold you from excess of confidence. 
Men die of overfulness as of want. 
Besides, that small invisible difference 
May (mark, I do not say it will !) may lead 
To different issues. Be not over-bold. 
What, Raymond, what ? You weep. 

Raymond {recovering himself) 

No! 



scene in. BLIND LOVE, 27 



CARLTON 



Yet be calm ; 



Your health demands it. 



RAYMOND 

Why do you handle me 
As if I were a woman, or a drug 
In your laboratory, to be tempered 
And analysed at will? You are to blame : 
You should have told the truth at once. I feel 
(Not for myself — I am calm about myself)] 
But for the Heaven which fell upon that man 
Whom I have always likened to myself, 
In one tremendous moment. Did it crush him ? 
How did he bear it ? 

CARLTON 

Reasonably, friend ; 
J Tis distance that enlarges hope or fear ; 
They dwindle as they reach us ; like the clouds 
Which cover half a sky, but at our feet 
Break into trivial raindrops. He was calm ; 
Men should be calm 



28 BLIND LOVE. act i 

RAYMOND 

O, then he was a fool 
Not worth a question. Talk of him no more. 
Stupidity is calmness out of place. 
There's no sublimity in sitting still 
While the house burns ; and that philosopher 
Who sees the world created, and is calm, 
Is capable of nothing. Out upon him ! 
I'd have the first half inch of visible green 
Choke him with ecstasy ! Come, will you lead me ? 
We should be going. 

CARLTON 

Does your father know ? 

RAYMOND 

Nothing. I am a prudent man, and hold 
Suspense when shared is doubled. 

CARLTON 

Say you so ? 
Yet should your prudence be compassionate. 
Your father loves you and is old — 'tis hard 
To leave him in this blank. 



scene in. BLIND LOVE. 29 

RAYMOND 

You check me well. 
The burden of my hope disables me 
From care for others. Will you write for me ? 

carlton {takes out his tablets) 
What shall I write ? 

Raymond (dictating) 

i My dear friends. Do not be uneasy about me. I 
am gone on a good errand and under good care, and 
you shall hear from me very soon. I am safe and 
content.' 

CARLTON 

; Tis done — and here your name ! 

RAYMOND 

I pray you guide my fingers to the place. 
I have a secret sign, whereby they know 
The words are mine. Is this below the name ? 

[Carlton places a pen in his hand. 
So, 'tis authenticated. 



To reach them ? 



BLIND LOVE. act i. 

CARLTON 

But, the way 

RAYMOND 



On the right, some yards away, 
There stands a rustic seat. 

CARLTON 

'Tis found. 

RAYMOND 

There place it; 
She left me there — lay it beneath a stone 
For safety. 

carlton {laughing) 
Your instructions are minute, 
Nothing escapes you. 

RAYMOND 

No. It is my pride 
To see with others' eyes effectively. 

[Exeunt Carlton and Raymond. 



scene iv. BLIND LOVE. 31 



Scene IV. 

E?iter Damer Grey and Hope, followed by Avice. 

grey (speaking as he enters) 

Safe here ? A pretty tale ! Safe anywhere ! 
Did you forget that he was blind ? For shame ! 
You thought to meet him as we came ? You thought ! 
I'll wager that you did not think at all ! 
Is this your care ? 

HOPE 

O, father, chide me not ! 
He sent me from him. 

GREY 

Sent ? Why did you go ? 
You should have made believe to go, and stayed 
To watch his dangerous steps. 

HOPE 

Why, so I did, 
But he suspected me. 



32 BLIND LOVE. act i. 

GREY 

You are so fine 
You cannot brook suspicion ; you would rather 
See such a man whom you profess to love 
Fall from a precipice, than stretch your hand 
To save him, if he bids you not. Come now, 
Do you know where you left him ? 

HOPE 

Here. 

GREY 

Oh, well, 
Very well — knowing that you left him here 
You are content, although you find him not ; 
He was here — and he should be here — triads all — 
And you are satisfied. But I, his father, 
Only his father, am less rational. 
Prove to me by a hundred arguments 
That on this square of earth he ought to stand, 

[Striking the ground with his stick. 
Must stand, has no escape from standing here, 
Yet, if I stand here too, and see him not, 
I feel a fault i' the logic. Raymond ! Ho ! 
Answer ! What, Raymond ! Raymond I 



scene iv. BLIND LOVE. 33 

hope {wringing her hands) 

Not a sound ! 
The path lies straight — that treacherous brink of fern. 
Was far behind — he could not face that way, 
And darkness is familiar to his feet, 
O ! he's not lost, but gone ! 

GREY 

This is mad talk. 
Where? how? with whom? Would gipsies kidnap 

him, 
Like some gay-snooded babe ? You cannot think 
To stay my hunger with such hollow trash ; 
Devise some better fancy. [Hope weeps. 

avice {to Hope) 

Why do you bear it ? 
You should not weep ; you have no cause to weep ; 
No momentary speck of doubtful blame 
Can touch you. 

hope 
O ! I think not of myself, 
The woe is here— it nothing comforts me 

D 



34 BLIND LOVE. act i. 

To say I did not bring it. If I knew him 
Unhurt and happy, I could be content 
To give him up for ever. 

AVICE 

Is that love ? 
I'd rather have the thing I love dead here 

[touching her breast 
Than crpwned in Germany. 

HOPE 

With that you prove 
You never loved at all. What shall we do ? 
In this mere blank we breathe not. He has . c unk 
As a ship sinks, with all her moving freight 
Of work, thought, hope, where the split water shuts, 
A waste without a mark ; he has ceased like sound 
Which in the sudden silence leaves no trace. 
We must go out and search the world for him, 
Or wait at home and die for want of him ; 
We are so cloaked and fettered by despair 
We cannot stir. Let us sit down awhile 
And tell each other how we love him, tell 
How noble and how tender was his soul, 



scene iv. BLIND LOVE. 35 

How his blind life made music in our home 

We would give all our eyes to hear again \ 

The dumb compulsion of such love as ours 

May wring him back from the veiled destiny 

Which holds him from us. Here I touched him last; 

I will beseech the ground to give him back 

Or gape and cover me. 

[She throws he?' self on the ground. 

GREY 

Why, Hope — why, child — 
Look up — he may be safe — break not my heart 
For your sake also. I was all amazed 
And knew not what I said. 

HOPE 

You said but truth • 
I should have clung about his knees, and saved him 
Against his will. 

AVICE 

Saved him from what ? Heaven help us ! 
The creature's gone ten minutes, and you talk 
As if you had the knife-hilt at your palm 
Wherewith he slew himself. I'll lay my life 



',6 BLIND LOVE. act i. 

(Dearer than his) there's nought amiss with him. 
I lose my patience ; are you one of those 
Who moan and make not ? Here ! 

[Discovering the letter. 

hope {taking it with trembling hands) 

O read it to me, 
For I am blind as he is. 

GREY 

Let me have it. 

[He reads the letter aloud. 
And here his secret sign ! Safe and content ! 
Too hard a nut for me ! And how content 
Knowing we could not know that he was safe ? 
Is that his love and duty? I am ashamed 
Of all this wasted agony. 

HOPE 

Rejoice 
That it is wasted — do not judge him yet ; 
We shall hear all ere long. Let us go in 
And muse together of this mystery, 
Which, till he speaks again, we cannot pierce. 



SCENE IV. 


1 


1LIXD LC 


WE. 




3i 


I'll not forgive him. 


GREY 












HOPE 












Father ! 












GREY 


Nay, 


I will not. 






[Exeunt 


Grey and Hope 


, Jianging on 


him. 



avice {alone, Iooki?ig after them) 
Aye, muse together, one in childish wrath 
That beats it knows not what, and one in faith 
As childish, trusting where it cannot know. 
Well for them that one disentangled soul 
Stands by, to smooth their web ! Now, if I knew 
Where he is gone ! Why, Hope, who watches him 
So closely that the germs of ungrown thought 
Should not escape her, rests in ignorance ! 
What worth is Love that cannot read the heart 
But stirs like a vague wind about the woods 
Which, ceasing, leaves the shaken stems to feel 
That proper life and movement of the sap 
Which it affected not. I am full of words 



38 BLIND LOVE. act i. 

Like philosophic preachers who make plain 
The doctrine, though they never do the works ; 
I know the shape and trouble of this Love 
Too well to trust my heart in reach of it. 
But see, here comes my dream-fed boy, who waits 
Through patient ages for a smile from Hope 
And, winning it, is sadder than before 
Because no blush goes with it. I'll stand by 
And hear his murmurs. (She draws back.) 

Enter Vernon, with a rose. 

VERNON 

Three times she passed \ three times I lacked the force 

To give her this poor rose I plucked for her ; 

O fool ! She heeds thee not enough to spurn thee ; 

The placid toleration of her smile 

Grinds me to dust ! Yet will I shrine her now 

Above me, where she is, and gird her round 

With homage and obeisance, such as maids 

Pay to the limned image of their saint, 

Nor seek return, except by miracle. 

Alas, a weary life, that dwarfs the soul 

Until it dies by wasting. 



scene iv. BLIND LOVE. 39 

avice (advancing) 

Are you there ? 
O, you are sad to-day. 

VERNON 

You read my face 
As the cliff-watchman reads the passing sail, 
Named in a moment. 

AVICE 

Truly I am glad 
When sympathy can do the work of knowledge. 

VERNON 

Since you discern my sorrow, tell its cause. 

AVICE 

Tis a strange sorrow, if it springs from Hope, 
Should not Hope cure it? 

VERNON 

Do not play with me. 
Reveal me such a cure, and I — no, no, 
I must be thankless for a boon so vast 
That it leaves room for nothing but itself. 



40 BLIJSTD LOVE. act i. 

AVICE 
Alas, poor Hope, I would she saw your heart 
Beside that one she dotes on ! 

VERNON 

Can it be 
That having won the queen of all the world 
He is but half her servant ? 

AVICE 

We are seekers, 
And what we have, we heed not. She's not wise. 
Will she take counsel? She is at his neck 
Hanging so closely that he sees her not ; 
She stands not in the picture of -his life 
Noted by light, or veiled by tempting shade, 
But, if he find a flower, and stretch his hand 
To pluck it, then he feels her; so his jewel 
Becomes an obstacle. You shrink — I wound you 
Against my will. 

VERNON 

That she should love him so 
Hurts more than that he so should scorn her love. 



scene iv. BLIND LOVE. 41 

AVICE 

Hush, hush, you must not say I spoke of scorn ; 
He loves her with a brother's temperance, 
Less than himself ; and she is satisfied. 
So would I be if I were sure of him, 
But 

VERNON 

Tell me how to help her ! 



AVICE 



Do not hold me 



So close. You hurt my hands. 



VERNON 

O pardon me. 
You have such vivid speech, you show the brink 
With her upon it, and I thought I saved her. 
"What can I do ? 

AVICE 

Am I so poor a thing 
That only by mistake my hand is pressed ? 
Tut ! he perceives not. 



42 BLIND LOVE. act i. 

VERNON 

Hear me 



AVICE 

Not a word \ 
I meant it not. Let us agree to watch ; 
Be this our compact — thoughts may strike aside, 
And judgments fail, but let us watch for facts 
Which cannot err. You that are Raymond's friend — 
(Men show themselves to men) lead him to talk, 
Keep back your heart and feel for his, and find 
How he regards her ; test him for her sake, 
That when we know the truth with certainty 
We may take counsel and devise for her 
How she shall bear it. 

VERNON 

I'll be led by you. 

AVICE 

Take him alone, and touch him to the quick. 

Match her with others, tempt him till he says 

He wearies in the everlasting light 

Which shows him all. 'Tis right that we should know. 



scene iv. BLIND LOVE. 43 

Or if, thus catechized, his creed comes out 
Immaculate (it will not) let us know it ; 
Herein we are Hope's servants in her sleep, 
And when she wakes she thanks us. 

VERNON 

In that service 
I cast away the life I value not, 
And thank you that you show me how to give it. 

[Exeunt. 



44 BLIND LOVE. act 11. 



ACT II. 

Scene I.— A Room in Carlton's House. 



E?iter Grey and Vernon, meeting. 



GREY 

I did not think to see you here. 

VERNON 

I hope 
I am not unwelcome. This excuses me — 

[He gives a letter. 
This, and a friendship more than brotherhood. 

grey '{reading) 

' Raymond Grey entreats your presence at the Fair 
Lawns, at twelve o'clock on Tuesday the 7th of July, 



scene i. BLIND LOVE. 45 

to hear the result of an operation, from which he 
hopes for the recovery of sight. 

(Signed) George Carlton.' 

Mine, to a comma ! More than brother, friend, 
You scarce are less than father. I must yield 
My natural precedence. Tell me then 
(You keep the keys of caskets which mine eyes 
Saw never open) did you look for this ? 
Have you perceived the budding of a hope ? 
How long — and with how £ound a prophecy 
Of fair conclusion ? You shall break no seal 
To tell me now. 

VERNON 

Nay, sir, I am dark as you : 
He told me nothing. I have ever found him 
Ready with feeling, reticent of fact \ 
Feeling, he says, is rounded with a word, 
You know its end and outset ; 'tis an air 
Which, passing, stirs the leaves, but, having passed, 
Affects not their resumed tranquillity ; 
But facts are living things — let them not loose ; 
You know not where they run, nor what they do, 



46 BLIND LOVE. act ii. 

Nor with what freight they come to you again ; 
And so he holds them prisoner. 

GREY 

So he talks, 
But such philosophy is doublefaced. — 
The invisible air is full of life and death ; 
We know not which we breathe, till the touched heart, 
Quickening or pausing, tells, perchance too late, 
What power has grazed its vital mystery. 
Why, common speech proclaims it — deeds are done, 
But each intangible immortal thought 
May cause a million deeds, and sweep through Time, 
Strewing its future harvests till the end 
When the strong reapers garner all the fruit 
And reckon all the seeds. 

VERNON 

You speak as one 
Who knows the future. 

GREY 

I am near enough 
To see it plainly. Every tract of Time 



scene i. BLIND LOVE. 47 

Swings like a ship with all its souls aboard 
Across the next horizon ; but the crew 
See not their fate alike ; some stand aloft 
And from the watchful summit of their years 
Scan all the field — some only see the sky, 
Some, only the cleft water — dangerous guides 
Wrecked by the details which they overlook 
Or overestimate. I pile my words 
Merely to smother time. Must we sit still ? 

VERNON 

What should we do ? 

GREY 

It is a sin, I know, 
To wrest grasped secrets from the coming hour 
And crush them ere they open — but such sins 
Precede temptation, and are done and rued 
Before we know they court us. Shall we talk 
Of our conjectures ? I have noted him 
Full of those starts and pauses which bewray 
A brooding soul. I let them pass. I knew 
He bore a heavy load. The moods and mists 
Of one who suffers should be questionless ; 



48 BLIND LOVE. act ii. 

He may pass through them into purer air. 

But none can show him how. He stumbled on, 

Crutched by a girl's unmeaning sympathy, 

Which men will welcome when they turn from men. 

She knew no more than I. Ha ! here she comes 

With her wise ignorance. 

Enter Hope, followed by Avice. 

hope 
Father ! 

GREY 

Why, what now ? 
Was there a ghost in your path? 

HOPE 

O no, an angel 
Setting Heaven open. But I fear, I fear, 
If, having seen what may be, I return 
Only to keep what was, I should be found 
Not strong enough to comfort him. O father, 
Will you not tell me what you hope ? Tell nothing ! 

[Stopping her ears 
I will not hear you if you speak. O, peace ! 
You shall not — nay, you must not ! 



scene i. BLIND LOVE. 49 

GREY 

So, SO, SO ! 

This is our heroine — take away your hands, 
I am not one to play the headsman's part 
Without commission. Child, be satisfied, 
I too await the dawn. 

HOPE 

What can we do ? 
Methinks my soul is faithless. I should pray, 
But I so quake and totter on this edge 
That not a thought has room to shape itself. 
Now God forgive me. 

Enter Avice. 

avice 

Amen for us all. 
Come, you white penitent, and show your sins : 
They must be dreadful since you hide them so 
That none can guess their names. 

GREY 

Are you come too ? 



50 BLIND LOVE. act ii. 

AVICE 

I know I have no place here — let me stay — 
I'll hide in a teacup. 

hope (taking her hand) 

You shall stay by me. 
I know you are as earnest in your smiles 
As we, with all our weeping. 

AVICE 

Truly spoken ; 
A woman I, amazed with gratitude 
If I find merely justice. 

Enter Carlton. 

CARLTON 

Welcome all. 

GREY 

No man says welcome to a funeral ; 
What is your news ? 

CARLTON 

The best. 



scene i. BLIND LOVE. 51 

grey {shouting) 

He sees ! 

HOPE 

Where is he? 
[As she rushes to the door Carlton interposes. 
Hope, starting back, falls on her knees. Avice 
goes to her. 

AVICE 

Quick, or she faints ! 

HOPE 

No, no — no word of me — 
Tell me, or take me to him ! I forgot 
To give God thanks. 

CARLTON 

A moment's patience, friends, 
Before you greet him. You shall understand 
That all is as you wish ; he sees ; he is well ; 
He is here — nay, gently ! I have got a charge 
To speak to you from him. 

HOPE 

O for a leap 
Across this wordy chasm ! I have no sense 
Until I reach him. 



52 BLIND LOVE. act ii. 

GREY 

Nay, we'll listen for you 
And teach you afterwards. (To Carlton.) Say on. 

CARLTON 

Tis thus. 
This lady holds the measure of his wish [showing Hope. 
And can discern my failures. He has vowed 
More to himself than her, that her fair face 
Shall be his sunrise ; and so jealously 
Hath he maintained his vow, that with bound eyes 
In voluntary darkness, like a man 
Reprieved not pardoned, he awaits the look 
Which shall proclaim his freedom. 

grey (to Hope, who is still on her knees) 

Stay you there ; 
We lack the time to contradict this whim — 
We'll stand aside. Now, doctor, lead him in ; 
We are all marshalled. {Exit Carlton. 

hope (who has been hidi?7g her face, looking up) 
I know not why I am afraid to see 
Until he sees me. While his eyes were dark 



scene i. BLIND LOVE. 53 

Mine were his weapons — they seem useless now 
Except for tears of joy. 

AVICE 

A sorry welcome ! 
You should laugh out, like sunshine. 

HOPE 

I might fear, 
Being so weak, to be nothing to him now, 
But in the strength and sureness of his love 
I am armoured from all doubts. 

GREY 

Peace ! peace ! he comes. 



Scene II. 

Re-enter Carlton, leading Raymond, whose eyes are 
bandaged. He places him opposite to Hope, who 
still kneels ; the others draw back a little. 

RAYMOND 

Hush ! not a word. Respect this mimic sleep 
Which I prolong because I need not Hark ! 



54 BLIND LOVE. act II. 

You think me blind — I say it is a mask : 

Behind this kerchief are the eyes of a man ; 

I'll loose it in a moment. Is it not grand 

To hold the great bright universe of God 

Thus in my leash, and slip it when I will, 

Not till my soul is ready for it ! Skies, 

Trees, waters, wonders, dead and living things, 

Musical Day that from its first faint note 

Swells to a chorus and then sinks again, 

Films of far lustre wandering among clouds, 

Fine blooms of fragile grass about my feet, 

Upgathered wealth of hue and lineament 

Shining since Chaos, making through blind Space 

Vast preparation for the Man who comes 

To take his heritage— all are in this knot, 

[touching the bandage 
And lo ! the Man is come ! 

[As he takes off the bandage Avice makes a step 

forward — Raymond, after an instanfs pause, 

passes Hope,, rushes to Avice, and clasps her in 

his arms, 

RAYMOND 

My own ! my love ! 
Better than all my dreams 



scene ii. BLIND LOVE. 55 

AVICE 

Alas, you err. 
O, this was not my fault ! [She draws away from him. 

GREY 

No fault at ail \ 
The whim was sure to bear a blunder. Come, 

[touching Hope 
Speak you and make it right. 

Hope (clasping Raymond's knees) 

O, these new eyes, 
The heart must learn to see with them. Look down, 
And when you have beheld me well, forgive me 
For that I am not fairer. 

RAYMOND 

Fair enough 
For me. I know you now ; come close and teach me 
My alphabet of beauty. Here are brows 
Pure as a sculptor's wish ; eyes like deep flowers 
Wherein the dew stays long ; cheeks that do lack 
Part of their natural bloom, pale, as I think 
With habit of some pity ; aye, and lips — 



56 BLIND LOVE. act ii. 

When I have touched them, I shall understand 

The sweetness of their wisdom. [Kisses her. 

GREY 

We have here 
A ready pupil ; check him, lest he prove 
A Wrangler out of school. What ! are you blind 
Because he sees ? Show him your face again 
Lest he forget his lesson. 

HOPE 

I was never 
Ashamed till now. 

RAYMOND 

And never had less cause. 

GREY 

Am I forgotten ? Not a word for me ? 

RAYMOND 

0, sir, my long Bastile is hardly down, 

1, tottering into freedom lose myself 
With memory of my vast familiar blank, 
Making a haze about the multitudes 



scene ii. BLIND LOVE. 57 

Through whom I walk, till I distinguish not 
The faces I most honour. You must pardon 
My unfelt failures. 

CARLTON 

Let me claim you now : 
My work is done, yet must I press upon you 
That safe prescription of a tranquil mmd 
Which is the seed and atmosphere of health. 
Will you go in and rest ? 

GREY 

The doctor speaks 
And we obey. Yet hold ! we are but churls, 
Snatching our new-found treasure greedily 
And turning from the giver. Was there found 
Not one to thank you ? 

HOPE 

O, to bless you rather 
With every moment of our joyful days 
And sweet un-haunted nights ! 

CARLTON 

Enough, enough ; 
We labour for these silent sights of praise 



58 BLIND LOVE, act ii. 

And they reward us. Take him, gentle nurse ; 
You that have soothed and charmed his helplessness 
Must win him to forget his power awhile, 
Lest over-use make vain the time of growth. 
Now, no farewells. 

RAYMOND 

Submission is my thanks. 
[As he is about to leave the room with Hope, he 
pauses and addresses Avice. 
For you, my fair dumb enemy of old — 
(Not dumb then, but most vocal), have you not 
So much as a smile to welcome me to life ? 

avice (hanging her head) 
I am as glad as others. 

RAYMOND 

And no more ? 
Not a word for yourself? 

GREY 

Let it pass now ; 
You shall have time hereafter. 



scene II. BLIND LOVE. 59 



RAYMOND 

I shall claim 

My debt ere long, foregone but not forgotten. 



HOPE 

Ah, love, misjudge her not, speech comes not soon 
To sudden joy ; her heart is full of words. 

RAYMOND 

Are you so sure of that, my tender Hope ? 

Come and reveal to me that secret tongue 

That I may read it. I am fain to learn 

All my new faces. [Exeunt Raymond and Hope. 



Scene III. 
Grey — Avice — Carlton — Vernon. 

GREY 

You may learn too much 
From such unwary teaching. What needs he 
To gain from other hearts ? I do not like 
This fingering of strange gold with coffers full. 



60 BLIND LOVE. act ii. 

Why did you thrust yourself between them, girl ? 

\to Avice 
He should have seen no face but hers, until 
It had possessed him with its image, so 
That he judged yours by it, and made a fault 
Of every difference. She is fair enough — 
Why were you here ? 

AVICE 

O, uncle, be not hard ! 
Could I, whose life is yours, shut out myself 
From your life's brightest hour ? So you would make 

me 
Merely an outcast. He hath learnt her now, 
He did but miss his way : he is at home, 
And in the safe and pleasant light recounts 
How for a moment his stray footsteps risked 
A loss, which being now impossible 
His memory laughs at. 

GREY 

Tush, his memory ! 
Why should he think of it at all ? 



scene in. BLIND LOVE. 61 

AVICE 

He will not — 

Nay, I am sure he does not ; he has dropped 

The trifle ; let it lie — who takes it up 

And sets it in new light for him to see 

Is not his friend, nor wise. • 

GREY 

What, do you teach me ? 
Whence grew your mighty wisdom ? Let me tell you 
I preached before you lisped. Why, you lisp still ; 
I hear the milk about your speech. Have done ! 
But that you are a lady, I would tell you 
Reasons are not like stitches, each to each 
Joined by the joining, not by natural growth; 
They live, rny girl, they live, and shape themselves ; 
We find, but cannot make them. You can tat ; 
Suppose you do. [To Carlton. 

If you can spare me time, 
I'd gladly hear some details of your art 
Which works so like divinity. 

CARLTON 

111 show you 
All that I can. [Exeunt Carlton and Grey. 



62 BLIND LOVE. act il 



Scene IV. 

Avice — Vernon. 

i 

AVICE 

Heavens, what a pupil ! Now, 
He'll not enquire but cavil, asking proofs — 
Not that he wants them, but that still he hopes 
His teacher has them not ; at every step 
There shall be fence, withdrawal, and retort, 
And the first fact shall stretch a two hours' talk 
And be refused throughout ; till with long smiles 
He turns in triumph from the humbled man 
Who knows so much which he shall never learn. 
I see it all. 

VERNON 

So you revenge yourself? 

AVICE 

If it be vengeance, have I not been wronged ? 
Say if I have not ! 



scene iv. BLIND LOVE. 63 

VERNON 

Well, he spoke in anger ; 
We toss away an old man's petulance 
Like sweet wine soured by keeping. 

AVICE 

But good wine 
Mellows with time, as true hearts soften, losing 
The bitterness of youth. 

VERNON 

The phrase is apt. 

AVICE 

To me ? You mean it so. Well ! if he said 
A tenth of these my injuries to her 
You would be bitter too. 

VERNON 

To her? To Hope? 
I've heard him chide her worse a hundred times, 
But she endured it. 

AVICE 

Oh, but she's an angel. 



64 BLIND LOVE. act n 

VERNON 

Aye, truly. 

AVICE 

Truly aye ; and I suppose 
It is an angel's work to make men fools 
Lest keen experiments on angelhood 
Should find out 

VERNON 

What? 

AVICE 

O, nothing but the truth, 
Whereof the angels keep monopoly 
Because it is not food for men. I've done ; 
I did but ruffle for a moment. Now 
I'm smooth again and all my friends are safe. 

VERNON 

I'll own you were provoked. And now, being safe, 
I'll ask you boldly, was there any cause 
For these aggrieved suspicions ? 



AVICE 

Not so much 
As, not being sifted, would lie easily 



scene iv. BLIND LOVE. 65 

On a white threepence — or would match, being 

weighed, 
A ring of infant's hair ! I cannot tell 
Why Raymond so mistook us — 'twas a chance — 
But with the ceasing of that transient chance 
His transient admiration, born of it, 
Died and was buried ) he but thought me fair 
Because he thought me Hope. 

VERNON 

Yet I supposed 
That you were doubtful of his love for Hope ; 
Did you not bid me test him ? 

AVICE 

Have you done so ? 

VERNON 

Occasion served not \ till this hour you know 
We have not met. 

AVICE 

Ah, truly — I forgot — 
But, for your question — if he love not her, 
(Which I still doubt why therefore should his love 
Light upon me — which I am sure it does not. 

F 



66 BLIND LOVE. ACT n. 

Brush off that dust before we break the shell 
Of any argument ! 

VERNON 

That set aside, 
His love, that should be hers- 

AVICE 

6 Should be ' 's a fetter, 
And ' Is ' a fire ! I know he means to love her, 
Was bound, and ought, and may— pray Heaven he 

will; 
But if he does not, Vernon, if he does not, 
O, you that know what Love is, having cast 
Its glory as a carpet for her feet 
Whereon they tread unknowing, save her now 
From that worst doom, the recognised despair, 
The daily prison, of a cold embrace 
Which crushes like the slow un-venomed snake 
Without a wound, and being loosed, leaves Death. 

VERNON 

Aye such a doom, I know, were death to her, 

But, being what she is, I scarce believe 

That it could reach her. From the winds of earth 



scene iv. BLIND LOVE. 67 

Tis well to screen a taper, but the stars 
Shine over all unshaken. 

AVICE 

So you talk, 
Man-like, but ignorant of men ; a woman 
Reads you, in spite of critics. He shall count her 
Safe as a star, too difficult for love, 
While some poor taper, which his hand must shade 
Lest a breath quench it, occupies his thought 
And wins him from the skies. It may be so ; 
I say not that it is ; with riper time 
We shall discern. 

VERNON 

And so far am I fixed 
To work for you. 

AVICE 

For her. 

VERNON 

I think you love her. 

AVICE 

So well that I would serve her even with pain 
To save her from worse issues. 

f 2 



68 BLIND LOVE. act ii. 

VERNON 

Now I leave you, 
And at my nearest leisure will assay 
The temper of this steel. 

AVICE 

Mine all the joy 
If you should prove it flawless. 

VERNON 

Mine the pain 
Whichever way I find it, for her grief 
Racks me, yet leaves my life a quivering thread 
To grow from — but, of her sure happiness 
I die outright. So pass I to my fate. [Exit Vernon. 

avice, alone. 
( She comes forward. ) 

Is it my fault that I am fair ? Alas 
Hath Beauty any virtue, like the Spring, 
Which needs but show herself a little while 
And the moved greatness of reluctant Earth 
Gives out its slow flower-worship everywhere ? 
Is this my meed ? Nay rather, seem I not 
But one of that poor multitude of flowers 



scene v. BLIXD LOVE. 69 

Which some shall pass, some point at, some extol, 
As straighter than its fellows, till it fades 
(Not saved by any straightness) on the stem 
Or in the hand, what matter ? for it fades 
And no man misses it. There's not a word 
But Hope, and Hope, and all the world for Hope 
Lost for her like a kerchief, given by her 
Like a gem from her fingers. Madness all, 
For I, who love her, cannot tell the cause ; 
Not in her face, I know, and, for her mind — 
Did ever mind bewitch a heart ? A touch, 
A whisper, would confute these blunderers, 
Breathed in the ear, ' Look this way and discern 
How, merely by not looking, you have failed 
To find the fairest.' 



Scene V. 
Enter Raymond. 
Raymond— Avice. 

RAYMOND 

Now the day is kind 
Which keeps you here alone. 



70 BLIND LOVE. act 11. 

AVICE 

Sir, with what reason ? 

RAYMOND 

The reason that I longed to find you here 
And without witness. 

AVICE 

This is but to shut 
Door behind door. 

RAYMOND 

I will undo the bolt : 
I am afraid that I have angered you, 
And if I sue for grace in other ears 
I make the sweet mistake a crime. You blush ! 
Are you offended ? 

AVICE 

No. 

RAYMOND 

Am I forgiven? 

AVICE 

No. 



scene v. BLIND LOVE. 71 

RAYMOND 

I'll explore this brief vocabulary 
And ask you, do you hate me ? 

AVICE 

Yes, I do. 

RAYMOND 

You shall not go till you have told me why, 

AVICE 

111 speak without compulsion. You have brought 

My uncle's wrath upon me — Hope is vexed, 

I shamed, and for no cause. I am not good, 

I know it, but my life was happy here ; 

I had forgotten that it was not home, 

Though it be all I have instead of home, 

For they were kind, and I am quick to love ; 

But now I learn my place — an alien I, 

Nay, a mere pauper — if I claim too much 

He hounds me from his threshold with fierce words. 

You do not know the things he said to me, 

And I had done no wrong. 



72 BLIND LOVE. act n. 

RAYMOND 

Yet, pardon me 
Who did no wrong, but only what I must, 
Else are you hard as he. 

AVICE 

Why should you care ? 



RAYMOND 



I must not tell you. 



AVICE 

Is there 6 must ' for men ? 
I thought it was the privilege of men 
To make their lives. 

RAYMOND 

O, Avice, if it were ! 
But I'll not speak of that. I never knew 
That you lacked aught of home — you seemed to me 
A princess, glancing with unthinking grace 
About your court. And was there at your heart 
This wistful pain ? 



scene v. BLIND LOVE. 73 

AVICE 
I should not speak of it, 
For they are kind, and if you tell them this 
I shall be held ungrateful. 

RAYMOND 

I am dumb — 
The secret lies between us, undiscerned, 
Save that henceforth your courage of bright words 
Kindles my wonder, and your sadder hours 
Must take me for their comforter, who know 
What shadow dims them. 



AVICE 

But, before my uncle, 
I pray you slight me still ; some dream besets him 
(Old brains we know are wrinkled up with whims), 
That, praising me, you must disparage Hope ; 
And if one looks at me with eyes as kind 
As yours (I know not why I shrink from them) 
He storms and darkens, till I'm like to swoon 
For mere dismay. 



74 BLIND LOVE. act n. 

Raymond {taking her hand) 

The compact hath two sides : 
If in his presence I disdain you well 
Doing your bidding nobly, at what cost 
You guess not, I must make the balance good 
When he's away. 

AVICE 

But how ? 

RAYMOND 

I'll show you how 
When the time comes. 

AVICE 

Methinks we are too grave 
For your first day of freedom. You are changed ; 
I cannot link you with the man I knew, 
I am afraid of you without a cause. 

RAYMOND 

What ! you afraid, who were so swift of tongue, 

That we, before you, grew incapable 

Merely for want of breath ? Keep, I beseech you, 



scene v. BLIND LOVE. 75 

(Though it be feigned) this meek uncertainty 
Which makes me man enough to comfort you ! 



I shall be wanted. 



AVICE 
RAYMOND 

Yet a moment more- 



AVICE 

No, no, to-morrow I shall understand ; 

I am confused to-day. \_Exit Avice. 

Raymond {alone) 

And what am I ? 
Do I perceive a change ? Those rapid eyes 
Have read me while I stumble at myself. 
What do I feel ? A little while ago 
I had my place and fitted it— a loop 
In the great web — patient, and indistinct, 
And necessary, though I hardly knew 
Why I was there, or why I lived at all, 
Not finding any glory in my life ; 
The limit pressed me everywhere — I ruled 
My daily motions like a household book, 



76 BLIND LOVE. act n. 

So much for this, and such a space for that, 
This abstinence to balance that expense, 
And leave a decent fringe of charity 
To trim but not encumber all the rest; 
I loved, and knew the reason of my love, 
And loved in reason — limits everywhere, 
But a young soul within. Lo ! it hath grown ! 
Not as seeds grow, which push the husk aside 
And build a plant by slow development, 
But as fire grows, a spark, a flame, a blaze, 
Making the Darkness give its wonders up ; 
What have I here in common with my Past ? 
The unfathomable welcome of the Future 
Beckons me, and I follow. 



scene i. BLIND LOVE. 77 



ACT III. 

Scene I. — A Room in Grey's House, with a 
large Window opening to the Garden. 

Grey — Vernon. 

GREY 

I tell you, he forgets her, which is worse 

Than scorning. Not a nerve replies to her ; 

She passes, and he stirs not; she departs — 

He, when his meditation is complete, 

Wonders a little why she went away 

For her mute neighbourhood disturbed him not ; 

She questions him, and then he answers her 

Right gently, as becomes a gentleman, 

And tells her anything she wants to know, 

And is content with anything she says. 

Pshaw, man, I know what Love is i If he loved her, 



78 BLIND LOVE. act hi. 

He would be full of challenges and claims, 
Unreasoning angers, desperate submissions, 
Incessant sense of her through all the moods, 
Like one voice speaking twenty languages, 
Her presence tumult, her withdrawal pain, 
Herself his breath of life. 

VERNON 

Is there, perchance, 
Some difference of nature ? Love is not 
The same for all — one temper feeds on sleep, 
And one on torture. He is sure of her 
As she of him. 

GREY 

Ah ! there's her placid fault ! 
If we could prick her with a fear, perchance 
She might rise up and conquer him. 

VERNON 

O, sir, 
You do not read her perfectly. Her love, 
Like that diviner habit which priests teach, 
Stands upon faith, and if the basement shakes 
The temple falls, and all that dwells therein, 



scene i. BLIND LOVE, 79 

The sweet life, which is nothing else but love, 
Is crushed — she dies of doubt ! 

GREY 

How young you are ! 
You turn her to an Idyl. Such a theme 
Must needs be read through pre-historic mists 
To make it credible. To-day, Elaine, 
After her little scrape with Lancelot, 
Would give up croquet for a month or two 
And then be Mrs. Galahad. 

VERNON 

I think 
There might be mockers too at Camelot, 
Who from the white appeal of that dead face 
Turned volubly, and talked about the lungs. 
We too shall find our poet — far enough 
To see the vast proportions of the Time 
And let the scratches on the surface pass. 
We too shall find our poet ; when he comes 
He will forget the scoffers. Pardon me. 

GREY 

He must be more than poet to forget 
The scoffs that rob him of his wreath. 



80 BLIND LOVE. act in. 

VERNON 

But say 
You have read Raymond's heart aright (though hers 
Is undecyphered), would you break the bond 
For this ? 

GREY 

Nay rather, seal and strengthen it ; 
I'd marry them to-morrow if I could ! 
These moderations suit from man to wife, 
But, being thus forestalled, and in the time 
When greater heat is natural, I fear 
Some check we cannot master. Make them one, 
(I would they were !) and he shall be content, 
And new experience, not like other men's, 
May teach him that his dreams were less than truth. 

VERNON 

There's danger in such haste. 

GREY 

But in delay 
There is destruction. I have thought of all — 
We'll have our wedding in a week. What now ? 
I think they have been plighted long enough, 



scene i. BLIND LOVE. 

He knows her from a child ; there's not a thread 
Of tangling etiquette to hold them back ; 
And, Vernon, think what, she has been to him ! 
Through all his helpless unrewarding years 
The patience of her heart surrounded him 
As with an angel's presence —will you say 
She has not earned him ? As he is my son, 
It angers me ! 

VERNON 

But if he love her not, 
If there be not a seed of love, you doom her 
To a most barren future. You have seen 
That he is frank with me. Say, shall I sound him 
And tell you what he feels ! 

GREY 

I charge you, no. 
Unsounded depths may smother hosts of proof 
Till some rash hand reveals their vacancy ; 
Your question, aptly framed, compels reply, 
And the loose thought, being gathered into words, 
Grows to a certain fact. Let him alone. 
'Tis a maid's privilege to fix the day 

G 



82 BLIND LOVE. act hi. 

Whereon she gives her fretful freedom up. 
I'll make her speak — and for mere courtesy 
He must respond ; and so you see we snare him 
For his own good. 

VERNON 

May you be right ! 

GREY 

Amen! 
Though your voice tolls it like an epitaph. 
Look where our lovers come. 

[Raymond and Hope are seen through the window. 

VERNON 

As slow of foot 
As if they feared their goal. 

GREY 

For shame ! For shame ! 
They linger in the sweetness of their way 
As lovers should. See, she holds up a flower ; 
Now, this looks well ! He takes it. I'm afraid 
He is but telling her the Latin name ! 
Who wants intelligence in making love ? 



scene I. BLIND LOVE, *3 

They don't know how to do it ! Tis enough 
To sting the patientest of human souls 
Into mere frenzy ! 

VERNON 

Even a married man 
Might take a violet from his wife's white hand, 
Without botanic prelude ! 

GREY 

You are set 
To choose the worst interpreting. 

VERNON 

Not so ; 
I do but follow yours. 

GREY 

Well, I have done. 
I'll not disturb the lesson, [Exit Grey. 

VERNON 

I must take 
My news to Avice. I perceive she's right, 
And we must break this knot by any means 

G 2 



84 BLIND LOVE. act hi. 

So that 'tis broken. I that stand between 
Two confidences, screening each from each, 
Should see my way the clearest. [Exit Vernon. 

{Scene changes to the Garden.) 



Scene II. 
Raymond — Hope. 

RAYMOND 

To this place 
You have been wont to lead me. Let us sit, 
And try if such familiar atmosphere 
Can wake the heart of that forgotten man 
Whom I once was. [He sits down. 

HOPE 

Nay love, forget him still ; 
I'd grudge you profitable pain, and you 
Whose education has been only pain 
Can need no sobering touch. Take with both hands 
The riches of your joy ! 

[She sits down on the bank beneath him. 



scene n. BLIND LOVE. 85 

RAYMOND 

Were you thus low 
Before ? 

HOPE 

Ay, so my shoulder for your hand 
Was ready when you rose. 

RAYMOND 

Good Hope ! Good helper ! 
Were I blind now, I'd prize your ready love 
A thousand times more dearly than I did. 
I never fathomed it. 

HOPE 

Not on such terms 
Would I be loved. If you could hate me now 
I would not buy your heart at such a price 
Though I should die without it. 

RAYMOND 

I am sure 
You would not. Selfless and serene, you walk 
Among the passions ; 'tis the privilege 



86 BLIND LOVE. act in. 

Of serving others, that your proper pangs 
Remain unfelt. 

HOPE 

A better privilege 
Is mine to-day ; the joy of your new life ; 
Less yours, I think, than mine, and wholly mine 
Because I know it safely yours. Look round ! 
Is this the very landscape that you dreamed 
When my words painted it ? 

RAYMOND 

I cannot tell. 

HOPE 

Have you forgotten ? 

RAYMOND 

Yes, I have forgotten. 
O child, there are no landscapes on my soul ! 
My foot is on the threshold of the world, 
An army of innumerable hopes, 
Till now held fiercely back — baffled, starved, crushed — 
Are rushing through the land as conquerors, 
With every citadel unlocked before them, 
And all the happy pastures free for them, 



scene II. BLIND LOVE. 87 

And all the festive maidens bringing gifts. 
Not here, not now, not thus, I crown myself ; 
No dreamer I, to dawdle through the woods, 
No creeping sage to scan the grains of sand 
Or count the useless threads upon a flower : 
I must go forth among the minds, and rule 
By force and courage in that grander realm ; 
My labour and my triumph are with men. 

HOPE 

You seem a Prince from some old fairy tale 

Kept among shepherds, coming up at last 

To take his true inheritance and reign. 

I hunger for your glory. Well I knew 

In that near Past which seems so very far 

How strong the captive spirit was \ but then 

I dared not dream of coming liberty, 

As by a death-bed any thought of health 

Is shunned as an intolerable pang; 

Now, that which could not be conceived, is come, 

Twill be familiar in a week. You talk 

Of ruling men — you will behold and know 

How much of evil and of grief there is 

Wrought among men, which men can take away, 



88 BLIND LOVE. act hi. 

And you will be a soldier in the host 

Whose leaders are invisible. I too 

Can help, if you will teach me ; keeping bright 

Your armour which the common air may rust 

By service of my prayers, tending your wounds 

(Though I would have you scatheless), watching you, 

Revering, and remembering all the while 

Shadows that do but make the light more plain. 

Was ever woman in the world so blest ? 

[ While she is speaking Avice passes slowly across 
the lawn behind them. Raymond's attention is 
instantly drawn away, and he follows her with 
his eyes. 
Have you a place for me ? 

Raymond (absently) 

True — so you said. 

HOPE 

How, love ? 

RAYMOND 

Nay, pardon me, I meant — I will— 
Your words are lovely as yourself, and true 
As I would have them. I forgot a book 



scene in. BLIND LOVE. 89 

In yonder thicket where I walked alone 

Before you joined me ; I must fetch it in 

Lest the dew spoil it. [Exit Raymond. 

hope 

What a churl am I 
If my unnatural sovereignty which rose 
Out of his helplessness, being now reduced 
To its due limits, I grow sensitive ; 
I hate myself for thinking of myself — 
I'll make my heart more strong. It is the strain 
Of these, past anxious days that changes me, 
The shock of joy — I know not why I weep. 

[Exit Hope. 

Scene III. 
Enter Avice followed by Raymond. 

avice 
O, I have heard too much ! 

RAYMOND 

You must hear more — 
I love you ! 



9Q BLIND LOVE. act in. 

AVICE 

Cease ! 

RAYMOND 

I cannot cease to love, 
Nor you to credit what you knew before ; 
Silence avails us not. You know the truth 
And will not hear me tell it. I, who doubt 
Yet hope, would die to hear you say the words. 
Are you not mine ? Confess it ! 

avice (turning away) 

Think on Hope. 

RAYMOND 

You should have named her sooner, ere you wove 
The toils I cannot break. 

AVICE 

Not I ! not I 
I did not dream of this — I lie — I knew it ! 
O vile, vile, vile ! 

RAYMOND 

You shall not scorn yourself, 
No tongue shall touch the honour of rny queen. 



scene in. BLIND LOVE. 91 

avice {assuming a haughty air) 
You are too hasty, sir. Sir, you mistake ; 
I love you not. 

[She turns to go; he catches her hands and 
detains her. 



RAYMOND 

Look in my face and say it ! 
(A pause.) 



avice {gradually yielding) 
I — love — you. [Hides her face. 

RAYMOND 

Triumph ! Say it twenty times 
And twenty times again ; it shall be fresh 
As the first touch of light before the dawn, 
Or the first prick of colour in the bud, 
Or the first glance of wonder, which revealed 
There was an Avice for me in the world. 
For me ! For me ! 

AVICE 

I do perceive my heart 
Was yours before I knew it. 



92 BLIND LOVE. act in. 

RAYMOND 

It was made 
Only to beat for me. Do you now know it, 
Or must I teach you how to love me more 
By showing all the things I'll do for you ? 
You shall be such a queen as knights of old 
Contended for, making their glory hers ; 
What fame I win shall be your coronal, 
And your least impulse, ere you give it words 
Shall be fulfilled, because my heart forestalled it. 
Your meanest day shall be a festival, 
And wayside babes shall whisper where you pass 
There goes the fairest woman in the world 
With him who won her. 

AVICE 

Will it cease again 
This music of my dreams ? Will the dawn come 
And bring the bitter silence, which so oft 
Has mocked my listening heart ? 

RAYMOND 

So you reveal 

An unsuspected world, to make it mine 
With the first glimpse. 



scene in. BLIND LOVE. 93 

AVICE 

I have betrayed myself 
More than I should. Be kind and let me go ! 
You must forget what I with shame remember ; 
I knew not what I said. 

RAYMOND 

For that, your speech 
Is all the sweeter. 

AVICE 

O, we do but snatch 
One moment from the cruel coming grasp 
Which gathers up our lives. It is in vain ! 
You are not free to love me. 

RAYMOND 

I were then 
A slave indeed. I am but one who slept 
While some light hand wove webs of gossamer 
About him ; say that in that sleep he died 
The gossamer had seemed as strong as steel ; 
But lo ! he wakes, and all is brushed away 
With his first motion into life. 



94 BLIND LOVE. ACT in. 

AVICE 

Alas ! 

I hear you, but I cannot understand. 

RAYMOND 

Trust me, I am not cruel. She shall be 
The sister of our hearts, no less, no more ; 
There is no passion in her gentle soul, 
A little wonder, and a little pain, 
(Which I would spare her if 'twere possible) 
Will mark our easy severance, till she takes 
That natural and familiar sisterhood 
Which is her sole reality of love ; 
For all beyond, we blundered ; now we know 
The truth, 'twere sin to mask it. In a month 
Her tranquil happiness shall mirror ours 
In its own crystal silence. 

AVICE 

May it prove so ! 
But I am full of fears. What is your purpose ? 

RAYMOND 

To wed you. 



scene in. BLIND LOVE. 95 

AVICE 

Aye, but how to part from her ? 

RAYMOND 

Devise the manner with your sharper wit, 
I do but grasp the fact. 

AVICE 

Thus then I take 
The moment's swift suggestion. Vernon loves her 
With such a needy patience as besets 
A climber's walk for many a weary mile, 
And takes, content, a halfpenny at last, 
Wrung, but not given. 

RAYMOND 

So ! I'm sorry for him. 

AVICE 

Nay, nay, he shall achieve his recompense. 

RAYMOND 

If that be all our ground for confidence 

We had best teach ourselves to say goodbye ; 

Think of some better way. 



96 BLIND LOVE. act hi. 

AVICE 

You have not heard me. 
A jealous heart sees with a hundred eyes 
And he divines you truly, that your love 
Shrinks far below that heaven- encompassed height 
Whereon he sets her claims. I can so move him 
That he shall warn her like a trusty friend, 
Not craving any guerdon for himself 
Which might awake her doubt, but generously, 
Knowing the fact, braving the present pang 
To bar worse issues ; so the work begun 
Grows of itself — the crack that lets in truth 
Fills all the house with light. 

RAYMOND 

The plan is good. 
So— -Vernon loves her, — and mistrusts my love. 

AVICE 

Why do you ponder it? 

RAYMOND 

An hour ago 
He put me through my questions. I profess 



scene in. BLIND LOVE. 97 

With that weak appetite for sympathy 

Which sometimes pricks the strongest, I was near 

To showing him my heart. 

AVICE 

I pray you, hide it. 
He must not think you have a thought for me, 

RAYMOND 

There seems a mighty riddle in this man ! 
Must I believe he has a double heart, 
One face- to watch for Hope, and one for you, 
Both bringing me to judgment? 

AVICE 

You are angry. 

RAYMOND 

Faith, not at all : I am inquisitive, 
I wait instruction. Wherefore screen our love 
So carefully from Vernon ? Will it choke him 
If he but breathe't in passing ? 

AVICE 

For my sake ! 

H 



9S BLIND LOVE, act in. 

RAYMOND 

So ! For your sake ! I wait instruction still. 

AVICE 

You are not kind ; you should perceive, untold, 
Since I am yours, all ills that threaten me ; 
I .am not as a daughter in this house, 
Not shielded, not encouraged, not the theme 
Of sweet interpretations, which reflect 
Light on my darkest shadows — I must stand 
On only my poor self. If, ere you claim me, 
One faint suspicion touch me, I am lost ; 
I die to think of it. 

RAYMOND 

But if a breath 
Should pass you roughly, causing but a blush, 
I toss our paltry cautions to the wind 
And snatch you to my heart ! Now., are you safe? 

AVICE 

O, thus for ever ! {She starts away from him.) Hush ! 

I hear a step ! 
Tis Vernon — leave me ! 



scene in. BLIND LOVE. 99 

RAYMOND 

Nay, I'll stand my ground. 
I think I am a man, and not a mist 
To be brushed off that he may see more clearly. 

AVICE 

O, if you love me, leave me ! 

RAYMOND 

Thus adjured 
I cannot choose. But I have learnt to-day 
That our suspense is deadly, and must cease. 

[Exit Raymond. 

Avice (alone). 

O, if I come but safely to the light 
I will abide in it for ever ! Truth 
Shall be my daily garment ; 'twas not I 
Who set this tree of life beyond my grasp 
Which I can only reach by stratagem ; 
I hate the means, but die without the fruit. 



h 2 



ioo BLIND LOVE, act in. 

Scene IV, 
Enter Vernon. 

Vernon — Avice. 

vernon 
I have performed your bidding 

avice {interrupting) 

True — I know it. 
Friend, listen, for the need is great. You found 
All that we feared ? 

VERNON 

I fear he loves her not. 

AVICE 

Tut ! Drive the dagger home — there's not a pulse 
In all his round of days that's true to her ! 

VERNON 

Speak not of truth and him, if this be so. 
I hold him for the prince of treachery. 



scene iv. BLIND LOVE. 101 

AVICE 
O, let that pass — the question is of her. 

VERNON 

Aye and her doom was near. The bridal day 
Is fixed. 

AVICE 

When? When? 

VERNON 

I break a seal to tell you. 
Well — in. a week. 

AVICE 

Then, save her ! She's alone 
In that green garden-temple where she sits 
And weaves her daily liturgies. Go there 
And tell her — you that love her, should be bold 
To risk for her a little more than this. 

VERNON 

Can I that love her slay her with a word ? 

AVICE 

Nay, but the surgeon, with a tender hand 
Wounds, to preserve from death. 



102 BLIND LOVE. act in. 

VERNON 

How are you sure ? 
If we have erred in this 

avice 

We have not erred. 
Question not \ take the certainty ! 

VERNON 

But how 



AVICE 

I dare not tell you how I know this thing. 

VERNON 

From his own lips ? 

AVICE 

Yes — no — denial's vain ! 
From his own lips ! 

VERNON 

Then should you tell the tale. 

AVICE 

O, Vernon, I'm a woman and I cannot. 

Go you and speak the bitter thing you know ; 



scene iv. BLIND LOVE. 103 

Hide nothing, bid her seek him on the instant ; 
The fire of her quick coming shall compel 
The fact, and though she suffers, she is saved. 
Be such a friend as can afflict a friend — 
There's nothing greater. 

VERNON 

Would I could be sure 
That not a hope or fear about myself 
Moves me at all ; yet Avice, yet, I know 
That since it is of right to break this bond, 
The breaking stirs me with a secret thrill 
That may become a hope. 







AVICE 






It shall be more. 


You, 


her consoler, 


shall instruct her heart 


Where it may rest. 








VERNON 






I go. [Exit Vernon, 



avice {alone) 

The deed is done. 
There was no hand but mine, and there's no stain • 

[Looking ruefully at her hand. 



104 BLIND LOVE. act hi. 

Inevitable things are never sin, 
And only breed remorse in feeble hearts. 
The prince of treachery ! A hideous name ! 
I'll trust him. O ! how terribly I trust him ! 
He shall be true hereafter. We who hate 
This barrier which an angry doom hath built 
About the proper garden of our lives 
Can cross it, and forget it, and be true 
On the far flowery side of it, together ! 

[Exit Avice. Scene changes ', and discovers a place 

in the Garden before the entrance to a Summer- 

house. 

Scene V. 
Hope — Vernon. 

hope 
I know you mean me kindly. 

VERNON 

O, how cold 
Sounds that word ' kindly' by the thing I mean ! 
I mean, by any spending of myself 



scene v. BLIND LOVE. 105 

By sacrifice, by even your priceless pain, 
For which I hate myself, and you, thus grieved, 
(But you are gentle) might be drawn to hate me : 
By all this, and by more than this, I mean 
To save the sweet life which you throw away 
Not knowing what you do. But you are calm ; 
Have you received my words ? 

HOPE 

I am constrained 
To speak of what I should not. That you love me 
Is your mistake — my sorrow. I would hide 
From all the world, from mine own self, from you 
If it were possible, that you have cast 
Your precious gold, your sacred wealth of life, 
To one who, not unthankful, can give back 
Nothing more dear than thanks. 

VERNON 

Why speak of me ? 
I did not plead my love. 

HOPE 

Only for that, 
That innocent wrong, which I perforce have done 



106 BLIND LOVE. act hi. 

And cannot remedy, I hear you calmly ; 
Yourself, but not your words, which touch me not, 
Which I forget at once, for if remembered 
It would be difficult to pardon them. 

VERNON 

Are you so sure? You do but cheat yourself; 
Be honest, look into your heart, believe 
The witness which avouches all I say ; 
Have those unnamed and manifold appeals 
Which you find there, been satisfied ? Why then 
Each is a separate joy ! If they be joys, 
Why do you thus prohibit them like sins 
Or stifle them like pangs ? 

HOPE 

The thought is false. 
If you could know the heart which you misread, 
It measures not the greater. He must be 
Its test and not its answer. 

VERNON 

So your lips, 
Like skilful lawyers, frame an argument 



scene v. BLIND LOVE. 107 

To hide the point of danger, which a tear, 
A blush, the murmur of a sigh, betrays ; 
Too faithful witnesses who mar their cause 
While others plead it. 

HOPE 

I have heard enough : 
You make forbearance treason. 



VERNON 

Yet a word- 



hope (interrupting) 
Not a breath ! I despise my gentleness ; 
I should have shown you this indignant heart 
Which pity veiled (I must not be ashamed 
To speak of pity now) since sense so base 
Is put upon my patience. He whose name 
I breathe not to you, will forgive my fault 
More readily than I forgive myself 
That I have heard you doubt him. For your sake, 
But not for mine, nor his, take this reply : 
There's not a cloud-flake in the upper air 
Slight enough to be likened to your words 



10S BLIND LOVE, ACT in. 

As they flit over mine unruffled faith 

And fleck it with no shadow. [She turns away. 

VERNON 

I am dumb. 

hope {returning) 
You should have been so sooner. 

VERNON 

Here comes one 
Who may convince you ; slay me with your scorn 
And 111 not make defence, if you but find 
Courage to question him. [Exit Vernon. 

HOPE 

What word is that ? 
Courage ? I need no courage, being safe ! 
I have invited insults. 

Enter Raymond. He starts back. She runs to him. 



Scene VI. 
Raymond — Hope. 



Forgive me ! 



hope 

O my love, 



scene vi. BLIND LOVE. 109 

RAYMOND 

For what crime ? 

HOPE 

Against myself, 
Not you — not for a moment against you 
I sinned, because I suffered him to speak 
Words which do blind me with remembered shame ; 
But you are here, and I am in the light 
And I must show you all. 

Raymond {aside) 

If this be so 
As I would have it, as I think it is, 
We are free, we triumph ! {Aloud.) Speak and have 

no fear ! 
Vernon I think went from you as I came ; 
Hope, I have read him through. I know he loves 

you 
With such a loyal patience as your own 
Which will not tamper with another's seal. 
But he who set the seal can break it, Hope. 
I'll give you words. If he has tempted you — 
If there were trembling moments in your heart 



no BLIND LOVE. act hi. 

Which as he pleaded, almost answered him 
As he would have you answer, tell me all ! 
We are all frail — let all be merciful ! 

HOPE 

Would you forgive me that ? Alas, my Raymond, 

I could not be so placable to you ; 

I know not if my love is hungrier, 

Or if my trust, being made so perfect-pure, 

Takes the least flaw for ruin, but I know 

If I could let a doubt into my heart 

; T would break it in the entering. 

RAYMOND 

Then what said he ? 

HOPE 

Are you so cold ? Must I defend myself? 
Should not that cause be safe whose just defence 
Lies in the judge's breast ? I was a child 
When first you made me love you. Looking back 
The time before that far beginning seems 
Like a vague dream before a lovely day, 
For I began to live then. You should know 
Better than I, the manner and the growth — 



scene vr. BLIND LOVE. in 

It is myself, I cannot speak of it. 
Oh, you were jesting when you doubted me ; 
There's not a word of love you ever spoke, 
Not a kind look, nay, not a turn o' the voice 
Dropping to tenderness, which stays not here, 

[touching her heart 
Recalled a thousand times, making sweet fire 
Under the common talk, which no man sees, 
To feed the happy fulness of my life. 
Sure you would mock me if I told you all, 
If I could show you (as I could) the leaf 
On yonder maple which the sun just kissed 
When somewhere in last June you said you loved me ; 
Or the soft inch of moss which pressed my foot 
When you compelled that answer from my lips 
Which had so long been ringing in my heart. 
Nay, but for shame, I could tell deeper things, 
Yet have I told too much. 

Raymond {aside) 

Must I hear this ? 
My punishment is greater than my fault. 

[A loud, taking Hope's hands. 
Hear me ! 



ii2 BLIND LOVE, act hi. 

HOPE 
Alas, your grasp is hard ! It hurts ! 
I never wronged you by a thought. 

Raymond {drops her hands and turns away) 

O, peace ! 
Do not look at me so — tell me — be sure 
You speak bare truth —if you could know me guilty, 
Worthless, a wretch for common speech to spurn 
And priests to preach of, would you give me up ? 
Speak, would you ? 

HOPE 

By this anguish in your voice 
You are not jesting. Dear, if you have erred, 
Some passion struck you — men may do the wrongs 
Which women dream of, being tempted less; 
But all are sinners in the sight of God. 
You are so noble, that you charge your soul 
With passages and moments which escape 
The common record. Tell, or tell me not, 
The pang which shakes your conscience, I am sure 
It touches not my love. 



scene vi. BLIND LOVE, in 

RAYMOND 

O ignorance, 
To which the blackest secret in the abyss 
Of miserable nature seems a cloud 
Melting against the daylight ! Words so sweet 
Which make the heart so bitter ! Irony 
Cutting the sharper that it means to heal ! 
Hate me ! You must, you shall ! 

hope {with her hands on his arm) 

I claim my right 
In this new grief — being yours it must be mine. 
Was it not always so, my Raymond? Think 
That the familiar darkness holds you still 
Where, trust me, you would miss the faithful voice 
And unforsaking clasp. Are they less yours 
Because your night is inward ? O, I am bold 
To count myself for something ! Call to mind 
That precious sorrow of the Past, which drew 
Such comfort from my love, that I was glad 
Once for a selfish moment, when I felt 
That I was all your world. Chide me for that ! 
I am your servant now, and you my world, 

But that's no change. 

I 



U4 BLIND LOVE. act in. 

RAYMOND 

It is impossible ! 

HOPE 

No confidence can wound like this withholding. 

If for my sake you hide a pain, remember 

Ere it can prick your heart it pierces mine. 

Nay, if you will not trust me, I must fear 

You love me less. [ Weeps. 

Raymond {aside) 

It burns me here — to death ! 
I cannot utter it. {Aloud.) You conquer me 
Against my will. I have not slept three nights ; 
Heed nothing that I say — I am not well — 
There is a haunting fever in my blood 
Which troubles me with visions. 

HOPE 

Ah, no sleep ! 
This bare tremendous life, which threatens you 
Without its natural veil, shall seem an angel 
When you have slept again. I marvel not 
The calmness of your late endurance pays 



scene vii. BLIND LOVE. 115 

This afterprice. I am glad you told me of it ; 
You must be handled gently. 

RAYMOND 

I'll go now 
And try to rest. 



Scene VII. 
Grey— Raymond — Hope. 

Enter Grey. 

grey 
Well found ! My errand, friends, 
Needs you together. 

HOPE 

Father 



grey (interrupting) 
You shall speak 
When I have done, if you have still a mind ; 
But I have that to say which makes maids dumb, 

1 2 



n6 BLIND LOVE. act in. 

Although they think the more. I come to fix 

Your wedding, gentle pair. (To Raymond, who starts) 

Ah, you are quick ; 
You would forestall me — will a week content you, 
Or must I say, to-morrow? Not a word? (To Hope) 
Come, are your ribbons ready ? Will you baulk us 
For any foolish scruple of delay 
Because your keys are missing, or your robe 
Lacks one out of its twenty tryings on ? 
Talk to her, Raymond ! 

RAYMOND 

Sir, you are too rough 



GREY 

What I? What, rough? Were I a woman, son, 
I'd not be wooed so gingerly. 

RAYMOND 

Dear Hope, 
Fear no unseemly haste— you shall be queen 
Of your own time. 

GREY 

So please your majesty, 
Your loyal subject, having, for good cause, 
Devised the day for this great ceremony, 



scen e vii. BLIND LOVE. 117 

Implores you of your grace to sanction it. 
Shall it be Thursday? 

[Raymond turns away with a gesture of despair. 



hope (who has been looking in a bewildered 
manner from the one to the other) 

I am not my own 
That I should answer. 

GREY 

Hark ! how modestly 
She bids you take your privilege. (Aside, stamping) 

Speak man ! 
Are you dumb dust ? 

Raymond (aside) 

Why shrink I from the lie 
Having fulfilled the treason? (Aloud.) Thursday, 

then; 
A joyful promise ! 

GREY 

Hope 



n8 BLIND LOVE. act hi. 

HOPE 

I pray you leave me, 
Or let me go, for I would be alone. 

GREY 

So, so, this liberty of solitude, 
Being short-lived, grows precious. You shall stay 
With your sweet thoughts. (To Raymond aside.) But 
if you leave her thus, 

You paper-hearted muser ! 

[Raymond approaches Hope, who shrinks away 
from him. 

HOPE 

Do not touch me ! 
I do beseech you leave me ! 

GREY 

Have your way ! 
We'll let her dream a little ! [Exit, with Raymond. 

[Hope stands silent for a minute with downcast 
head, then suddenly looks up. 

hope 

Was it true? 



cenei. BUND LOVE. 119 



ACT IV. 
Scene I. — A Garden — Evening. 

E?iter Raymond and Vernon — afterwards Avice. 

VERNON 

You seem not like a man whom fortune crowns, 
For whom suspense is satisfied, whose heart 
Stays in that pleasant time before the dawn 
When we long patiently, because we know 
The sun must rise. These starts of gloom befit 
A soul in fear. 

RAYMOND 

If you interpret me 
You shall make blunders. Let me pass ; we touch 
At angles, and you cross me. 

VERNON 

Shall I say 
I find you changed in friendship ? 



i20 BLIND LOVE. act iv. 

RAYMOND 

Pshaw, you harp 
Like women, with a burr of sentiment 
Through all the strings. Staccato, friend ! Life needs 
A grasp — and then, a rest ! 

VERNON 

Will the rest come ? 



RAYMOND 



I am not weary yet. 



VERNON 

To weariness 
Gomes never rest ; it comes but to content, 
Which lies and contemplates the thing that is, 
Needing no dreams. 

RAYMOND 

Even so you moralise, 
But twenty other true moralities 
May turn the self-same fact in twenty ways 
And still be true. I'll tell you why. No fact 
Has less than twenty faces. Unity 
Belongs but to the clumsy counterfeits 



scene I. BLIND LOVE. 121 

Which must be stationed to a turn, and seen 
By their due stroke of light, and never touched, 
Lest from their semblance of reality 
They crumble into chaos. 

VEKNON 

Will you judge 
Deeds by this measure ? Hath the crystal Right 
So many faces ? 

RAYMOND 

Nay, I never judge. 
I do not keep a conscience for my friends. 
Enough — here comes a gentle disputant 
For whom we talk too keenly, [Enter Avice. 

vernon 

Ah, sweet lady, 
The moonlight is not paler than your cheeks. 
Methinks you walk too late. 

AVICE 

O, no, too soon, 
.Because my quest is solitude and night. 



122 BLIND LOVE. act iv. 

VERNON 

Will you dismiss us so ? 

AVICE 

The garden's free, 
And I can walk elsewhere. 

VERNON 

How languidly, 
Unlike your vivid self, you make response ; 
Like the faint flutter of some wounded wing 
That once did push and sweep the resonant air 
From its undoubting way # 

RAYMOND 

This chemist, lady, 
Hath hearts in his laboratory. Mine 
Was analysed but now ; your turn is come : 
You shall learn how you ought to feel, and where 
His science marks your failure. Well we know 
The wheels of these triumphant theorists 
Crush all the desperate facts that clog their path ; 
Will you fall down before him ? 



scene i. BLIND LOVE. 123 

avice (disregarding him — to Vernon) 

Is it true 
That you can do such things ? 

VERNON 

What things, I pray you ? 

AVICE 

Why, even as he says, divine the heart 
In your sure microscope, and make us see 
That all we trusted, lived for, leant upon, 
Was the chance stir or stillness of a pulse ? 

RAYMOND 

Chance should not rule such pulses. 

avice (turning upon him) 

But it does ! 
Aye, chance so slight, that if a door but close, 
Or a cloud darken, or a voice speak softly, 
There comes an end and a forgetfulness 
To what seemed everlasting. 



124 BLIND LOVE. ' act iv. 

RAYMOND 

Were it so 
This were a piteous world. 

AVICE 

Why so it is. 
Could we read back the story of our lives, • 
Knowing the vain end and the helpless course 
Before the bright beginning, I am sure 
We might all die of pity. 

RAYMOND 

I can teach you 
Fairer conclusions. (She turns away angrily.) 

vernon (aside) 
I perceive myself 
Superfluous — and depart. [Exit Vernon. 



scene ii. BUND LOVE. 12 

Scene II. 

Raymond — Avice. 

avice 

Am I the dust 
That you so tread me ? You have done your work, 
A man's work, take the wages of a man 
Success, and let no thought, save of yourself, 
Trouble your peace, else were you less than man. 
Why do you look at me ? What is't to you 
That I am angry ? Do you note my words 
To spice with some new laughter for her lips 
The next full cup you tender ? I'll not bear 
To be remembered— let me pass from you, 
A blank page in the volume, which, being turned, 
Is never sought again. You are still dumb — 
Have you no answer ? 

RAYMOND 

Not a syllable 
Till you have done. 



126 BLIND LOVE. act iv. 

AVICE 

O, this is courtesy 
Of such fine sifting, that all qualities 
Come from its hands alike ; you shall not find 
The difference of a grain 'twixt love and hate 
Or truth and falsehood. I would sooner face 
The brutal honesty of savages 
Than such insensate smoothness. 

RAYMOND 

Chide your fill ; 
You only tell me what I knew before. 

AVICE 

That you are false ? 

RAYMOND 

Nay, but that you are fond. 
[Avice makes a passionate gesture of contradictio?i. 

RAYMOND 

O child, be mute ; you say you know not what, 
And point unreal weapons at your heart ; 
But I must utter words which should be wounds, 
Words which must wither all my nobler self, 



scene ii. BLIND LOVE. 127 

And though they be but air, have force to drive me 

For ever to the dark side of that line 

Which parts the course of good and evil men. 

O I am traitor to the truest soul 

That ever touched this earth ! 

AVICE 

You speak not so 
Of me. 

RAYMOND 

You, Avice, you? No, no, — our love 
Stands upon falsehood ; but of her whose name 
Henceforth I handle not ; who parts from us 
As martyrs do, when their unconscious silence 
Summons the judgment. 

AVICE 

I have never seen you 
So moved before — what have you done ? 

RAYMOND 

That only 
Which I must do ; I could not choose but strike her, 
But, being a coward, I struck her in the dark, 



128 BLIND LOVE. act iv. 

And so, the pity of the consequence 

Confronts me not. Let us be gone from it ! 

What is it to us if night is at our backs 

When all the torrent of triumphant noon 

Flows to our lips ? Drink deep, we need drink deep ; 

The palace of our Future must be built 

On a forgotten Past. 

AVICE 

Do you say so ? 
Love, based on falsehood and forgetfulness, 
Come you to me with such reproachful eyes, 
With such uncertain heart ? 1 had dreamed 
A woman's dream — shall I not tell it you ? 
Of a man's love that was a real thing, 
That burned i' the soul, that knew what it desired, 
And like a shaft of conquest cleft its goal 
Right through a waste of unregarded air — 
Such love were worth the dying for — for less 
'Tis not worth while to live. I have said all 
But my last word, and that is — Give me up ! 

RAYMOND 

Is this mine Angel tempts me ? She may eak 
With such a voice, but should not wear that face ! 



scene ii. BLIND LOVE, 129 

AVICE 

You have answered me. Farewell. 

Raymond {taking her hands) 

We must not part 
So carelessly. You that did love me once 
And now forsake me, should not drop away 
As a leaf drops when long days loosen it, 
Noiseless and noteless. There is something due, 
If but a pause that's measured by a sigh 
(No longer), to sweet promises unkept 
And unforgotten. Let me count your debt ; 
First there's my heart — but that's not much — a tear 
May balance that (methinks you have it ready), 
My hope, my life, my faith, my happiness ; 
For trifles such as these should I give back 
This jewel for which a man might change his soul? 
Nay, but HI hold it ! 

AVICE 

Do you love me then ? 

RAYMOND 

I'll tell you so a thousand times a day 
When we are free. 

K 



130 BLIND LOVE. act iv. 

AVICE 

O, if the time were come ! 
Yet if you care for me with the tenth part 
Of my too strenuous love (which is my life); 
Nay, if you do but care with such a force 
That were I dead you would be sorrowful, 
And were I false you could not compass scorn 
For sadness, and whene'er you see my face, 
There's something at your heart says ' this is mine 
I'm not complete without it,' I would kneel 
At your feet for so much. Ah ! beware of me, 
Let no mad threat of parting cozen you, 
For when that future comes, and I am yours, 
I will not live an hour away from you. 

RAYMOND 

So change you ! Queen and slave in half an hour ! 
But, when that future comes, each mood shall seem 
As precious as those baffling sunset hues 
Which make a painter's rapture and despair- 
Time fails to mark them now. Hush ! in your ear— 
I have devised that we shall fly to-night. 

AVICE 

To-night ! Together ! 



scene ii. BLIND LOVE. 131 

RAYMOND 

Aye, no other way. 
A thing that should be done without a word, 
Will you be waking ? 

AVICE 

When? 

RAYMOND 

Why, half an hour 
Past midnight, with no signal, lest we rouse 
Unwished-for eyes. You tremble 

AVICE 

Not with fear. 
What must I do ? 

RAYMOND 

There's a thin moon— enough 
To light a crime ; where yonder chestnut droops 
111 hide and wait ; a trusty hand below 
Holds our boat ready — make your eyes more false ! 
They write your thoughts in fire. 
k 2 



132 BLIND LOVE. act iv. 

AVICE 

Whom have you trusted ? 
I fear ! I fear ! 

RAYMOND 

Be satisfied — a man 
Truer than we are; though he's but a groom 
He'll not betray his master ! 

AVICE 

Does he know ? 
O ! have you told ? 

RAYMOND 

We have not time for shame. 

AVICE 

Are you so hard with me ? 

RAYMOND 

I am so hard, 
That if you shrink I will not let you go. 
Why do you say so much ? I'd have you blind, 
Fast in my arms, your eyes upon my heart, 
Not knowing that my foot is on the brink 



scene II. BLIND LOVE. 133 

Till we have plunged You should seem whiter so — 
I would be charier of your soul than mine. 
You'll thank me for 't hereafter, when I need 
To look at something pure. 

AVICE 

Why, if you loved me 
You would behold me stainless as a star. 
It is the property of Love to make 
The thing it worships — to go forth like light 
On Alpine summits, turning snow to fire, 
And melancholy rocks to thrones of glory. 

RAYMOND 

Till the night comes. 

AVICE 

We know not of the night, 
O haunt me not with checks — let me once hear 
The singleness of passion ! 

RAYMOND 

'Tis my curse 
To bear a double nature — preachers say 
'Tis so with all men ; if you serve the one 



134 BLIND LOVE. act iv. 

You shall forget the other. But I serve, 

And so remember that mine ears are filled 

With low prophetic thunders. Do not weep ; 

Look at me — so — why, what a churl was I 

To scare you on the threshold of your bliss 

When I should lift you past it ! Come, be gay ! 

Show me the courage of your love ! I'll say, 

If you but glance aside and catch your breath, 

That you repent. Come, if we stay too long 

Some tongue shall wonder. [Exit, leading Avice out 



Scene III. 
Enter a Servant reading from a paper. 

SERVANT 

' Three steps ascending to a summer-house. 1 Yes, 
there are the three steps. ' A space of turf in front 1 — 
there's no doubt about the space of turf— ' And if you 
stand on the lowest step you will see the edge of the river 
and the top of the boat-house] {he stands as directed and 
looks off the scene). Do I see them? There's the 
river, sure enough — and what is that under the alders ? 



scene in. BLIND LOVE. 135 

Pshaw, the light is too dim, but I'm sure it's a wooden 
roof. This must be the spot. And now if I wait 
here patiently (so Thornley says) I can give him the 
message and the letter. It's a pity I don't know him 
by sight, but I can ask his name. And if he be, as 
Thornley says, a gentleman who is just about to get 
his own will in spite of everybody, why he'll be in a 
generous temper and I may make my profit of him. 
There's a step on the gravel ! And — here he comes ! 

Enter Damer Grey. 

servant (approaching him) 
I beg your pardon, sir, but are you Mr. Grey ? 

GREY 

Yes, that is my name. 

SERVANT 

Then I have a letter for you, and if you will be so 
kind as to read it, I can give you a full explanation. 

grey (faking the letter) 
The light's too dim, my friend. I think we must 
have the full explanation before the reading. Is any- 
thing amiss ? 



136 BLIND LOVE. act iv. 

SERVANT 

Nothing of consequence, sir. Thornley 



GREY 

Who is Thornley ? 

SERVANT 

Oh sir ! I see you are not sure of me, but I know 
all about it. I'm to be trusted. {Dropping his voice) 
I know all about the young lady, sir — and the boat — 
and half-past twelve o'clock to-night — and where 
Thornley was to wait for you. You needn't be 
afraid of me, sir. 

GREY 

Humph ! {Aside.) My mind misgives me, and 
yet the treachery would be too black, too foul — 'tis 
not human. {Aloud.) How can I make sure of you? 
Do you know my name ? 

SERVANT 

Yes, sir ; did I not call you by it ? You are Mr. 
Raymond Grey. 



scene in. BLIND LOVE. 137 

grey (aside) 
Even by this light I should scarce have thought I 
could be mistaken for my own son — yet I know I 
have kept my figure ! (Aloud.) Good ; and you 
came from Thornley. Pray, did he tell you the 
lady's name ? And what made him so communica- 
tive ? If you are to be trusted it seems that he is 
not. 

SERVANT 

I beg your pardon, sir, but that's the whole reason 
of it. Thornley has had a bad accident, sir, and 
could not keep his appointment with you — and I'm 
his cousin, and every whit as good an oarsman as he 
is — you'll find it all set down in this letter. And I'm 
willing to do his work for him and carry you and the 
young lady down to Overton, where the horses are 
waiting. I think I can undertake to do it in twenty 
minutes under the time, for a consideration. And as 
for the young lady's name, sir — why, I don't suppose 
you would be likely to name it to Thornley, but a 
man may guess it. We all know that you're the 
gentleman who wants to run away from his wedding- 



138 BLIND LOVE. act iv. 

day \ and Miss Avice, sir, she's the beauty of the 
whole country, and we don't wonder at you. 

GREY 

So, so, so ! {Aside) If there be shame on earth 
they shall suffer it. Ill not spare — 111 not wait — I'll 
not hesitate. Come in, friend, I shall want you. 
There ! {gives money.) Come and wait where I tell 
you. 

SERVANT 

Thank you, sir ! I am altogether at your com- 
mand. [Exeunt Grey and Servant. 



Scene IV. — A Boudoir in Grey's House. 

E?iter Two Maids with a white bridal veil and 
wreath. 

FIRST MAID 

Set it just here where she cannot fail to see it as 
she comes in. So — that fold falls sweetly — and the 
blossom is as soft and delicate as a babe's cheek. 
{She draws back and contemplates them after arranging 



scene iv. BLIND LOVE. 139 

them upon a chair.) One would think a girl must like 
to look at that. 

SECOND MAID 

But she did not give so much as a glance at the 
gown. She stood still and let us fit it upon her as 
though she were but trying it for another ; and she 
looked straightforward and seemed to see nothing- — 
there was no heart in her eyes — they were as far off 
and as empty as stars. If this is the proper way 'to 
be married I pray Heaven keep me single ! 

FIRST MAID 

You need not waste a prayer on that. But it is 
strange, for she has no home to leave, and she has 
loved him from her childhood. I think it is but a 
girl's fear of unknown happiness : she was ever a timid 
soul ; she would curdle at sour words — nay, a sharp 
look would pierce her. 

SECOND MAID 

Ah, she's too gentle for this world ! 

FIRST MAID 

Do not say so ; it sounds like bad prophesying. 
Stay, here she comes. 



140 BLIND LOVE. act iv. 

SECOND MAID 

I'll not face her. She wants a woman to give her 
courage for this leap, and you, who have been about 
her from her childhood, should stay by her now. 
Perhaps she may open herself to you with no listener 
near. [.Exit Second Maid. 

Enter Hope with downcast eyes and clasped hands. 
She comes slowly to the front, and does not perceive 
the veil or the maid. 

HOPE 

'Tis near. I thought a life through in the night, 
But there's no morning. I have looked all ways 
I* the blank unhelpful distance, seeing nothing, 
No coming speck upon the waste, to grow 
And shape itself a comfort as it comes. 
I'll not stand here with shut eyes, questioning 
If I be verily in this wilderness, 
Or if the sweetness of remembered water 
Flows to my feet unseen. It is not here, 
It was never here, I did but dream of it ; 
Nay, when I saw it brightest, had I stooped 
I should have risen with dust upon my lips. 



scene iv. BLIND LOVE. 141 

That's the worst pang. Was I not once a child ? 
(I think so.) What a wall of lovely thoughts 
Shut out the truth ! If you had told me then 
The hundredth part of life — if you had shown me 
One little fragment of the facts to come, 
I should have hid my face among my flowers 
And died there, never knowing. O, my heart, 
I wish I had done so ! [ Weeps 

Yet, yet, yet, he loved me ! 
I'll not believe he did not. 'Tis all dead, 
But that which dies has lived. 'Twere idiocy 
To groan for losing what I never had. 
O ! it was mine ! O fool, but it is lost ! 
So the cold Present sucks down the sweet Past 
And shuts above it. Not a sign to show 
Where all that light was quenched, only the sea 
With its slow murmur of funereal waves 
Pressing us onward. 

[She perceives the dress and wreath. 
Who has put these here ? 
Is there yet one who dreams I shall be happy ? 
O take away these lies ! Clothe me in black, 
And set no summer falsehoods on my brow, 
But bitter cypress and discarded rue, 



142 BLIND LOVE. act iv. 

Tokens of death to sever her who wears 
From all the common chances of delight. 
Who laid them here, I say ? 

maid (advancing) 

Dear lady, I ; 
Thinking to please you. Something makes you sad 
With more than maiden's fear ; I know not what, 
But surer hands than mine must sweep it from you ; 
Take heart, take heart — will you not see your friends? 
There's one who thinks all hours are blank without 
you. 

HOPE 

Was it your hand ? O friend, I dreamt you loved me ! 
I think there's no one loves me in the world ; 
There's some quick poison in my blood, that breathes 
On all beginning tenderness, and slays it 
Before it come to growth, or grow to love. 
Why was I made so terrible ? But you — 
I asked nought from you — wherefore should you 
mock me ? 

MAID 

Mock you, sweet heart ? Alas, your words are wild ! 



scene iv. BLIND LOVE. 143 

HOPE 
I have begun to hate myself, because 
I have so failed. I would I knew my fault 
That let the life so slip out of my hands ; 
Weak hands, false futile hands, letting that slip 
Which most they clung to — they hold nothing now; 
Now and henceforward through all empty days. 
T\vas not slight care, nor loose forgetfulness, 
Nor any lack of love — would 'twere the last 
So were I healed ! But I'll not scorn myself, 
I that have nothing left except myself, 
To face my sorrow with that cold sad strength 
Which says c I've not deserved it,' when Despair 
Answers again, c What matter, since you have it?' 

[Clock sir ikes. 
It is the hour I named ! They will be here. 
Look at me; am I calm? is my hair smooth? 
I would have no disorder in my looks 
For this farewell. Death is the sum of life ; 
My poor brief story, as I shut the book, 
Should show no blotted, no unworthy page ; 
The last words should be seemly as the first, 
No difference, except 'twixt joy and grief, 



144 BLIND LOVE. act iv. 

As the tale darkens from its opening hopes 
Unto this simple sorrowful conclusion. 
See, they are come ! 

Enter Avice and Raymond from opposite sides. They 
start on perceiving each other. 

AVICE 

Cousin, you sent for me ; 
I thought, for some slight colloquy of dress 
Or colour, for to-morrow — but I see 
You are better companied. I'll not disturb you. 

[Drawing back. 

hope {taking her hand) 
Stay. 

RAYMOND 

Tis for me to go. I'm all adrift 
In these divine discussions. 

hope {holding out her hand to him) 

Nay, I want you. 
Here — both — together. Do you fear my hand ? 
Are we so far as that ? Take it — you'll find 
It holds you lightly. 



scene iv. BLIND LOVE. 145 

Raymond (faking her hand) 

Must I not call it mine 
Before to-morrow ? Would you chaffer with me 
For such a sum of minutes ? 

HOPE 

I beseech you 
Not in that tone ! I am about to go 
Into a solitude, where I shall have 
Only a picture for my company, 
No living face such as I used to read, 
Perhaps not truly — yet undoubtingly — 
Keep me my picture fair ! 

RAYMOND 

I cannot guess 
Your meaning. 

HOPE 

Are you honest ? Would you swear 
You love me, in her presence? O ! be true; 
Even though you be not faithful — so my picture 
Shall still bear looking on. How weak am I ! 
This lingering is not life. [She joins their hanas. 

Take her — she's yours 

L 



£46 BLIND LOVE. act iv. 

I give her to you — lose not sight of that 
r the dazzle of to-morrow's joy. 

avice {trying to extricate herself) 

Fie, fie ! 
This is unseemly jesting. Must I count 
For nothing in these changes? 

HOPE 

Nothing, Avice ? 
Why, you are all ! Be happy ! I was blind 
When I was happy — now, alas ! I see. 
Pitiless Light, that hast revealed my path, 
Do not grow dim till I have finished it ! 



RAYMOND 



But, Hope- 



hope (shuddering) 
Ah, Raymond ! 

RAYMOND 

Avice, help — she faints ! 

hope Recovering herself) 
You should have named me in another voice ; 



scene iv. BLIND LOVE. 147 

Not the old voice, not that — let me not hear it 

Again before I die. I'll tell you quietly 

If you will listen. 'Tis not reasonable 

That words should be more difficult than deeds, 

Yet so they are. I know you love me not ; 

Hush ! I unclosed the casket where I kept 

My jewels, and found it empty. How they went 

I care not — they are gone. And I would thank you, 

Only my voice is weak, yet I do thank you, 

For that you pitied me, and w T ould have spared me 

At such a price as paying down yourself 

Without the heart — so, worthless. I must tell you 

I w T ould refuse my life at such a price, 

Aye, would go brightly to my grave to-morrow 

Sooner than mock my soul with such a bridal. 

Have I said all ? There's yet farewell to say — 

Farewell to both — in charity with both, 

With no petition but to be forgotten \ 

As you forget a face, which for one hour 

Came like a cloud between your light and you, 

But, finding out the shadow that it made, 

As a cloud passes, passed, and came no more. 



148 BLIND LOVE. ACT IV; 

RAYMOND 

Shall we part so ? Though you reproach me not, 
The intolerable sweetness of your scorn 
Destroys me. True, I'm guilty— hold me vile 
As feverous breath from which you turn your face 
Lest it infect you 

hope {interrupting) 

Nay, I said not so. 

RAYMOND 

Away with words, I answer to your thoughts. 
Am I not judged ? Yet what could I have done ? 
It was defect of nature, having known 
Your excellence, to take another love ; 
But Passion is. not born nor ruled by Will ; 
It rises like the unconquerable tide, 
And sweeps a life before it as the sand. 
Was I a god to stay it ? What could I do ? 

HOPE 

I have no skill to say what men should do, 
But Constancy's the test of noble thoughts ; 
You should have been what I believed you. 



scene iv. BLIND LOVE. 149 

avice (to Raymond) 
We can but wound her more- 



Cease ; 



HOPE 

O, more you wound me 
By ' we * and * her ^ than by a mile of proofs 
Which might be wider of their arguments 
Than that unanswerable carelessness 
Which drops the sudden Truth before my feet 

AVICE 

Pardon me. 

HOPE 

You are pardoned. Nay, I'm hard. 
Cousin, I think you did not mean me wrong (to Avice 
As you stand now, I see there is no help ; 
More, having passed that barrier, you have done 
Whatever was not made impossible ; 
You have encountered me with gentleness 
And would have drugged me into lifelong sleep 
With not a grain more falsehood than you must. 
I thank mine Angel that I waked in time, 



150 BLIND LOVE. act iv. 

Else would you be as I am — worse i' the Past 

But better in the Future. Not my will 

I s bitter, but my words against my will 

Put on unconscious bitterness. I hear them 

As if another spoke, and think them cruel, 

But cannot make them false. I'll think of you 

More kindly, cousin, when I see you not. 

I meant to smooth this parting. I would fain 

Be one of those meek souls, who, when new Death 

Wrenches a life into two bleeding halves 

Cover their eyes and think they are content 

To grope among the rains. I'm not yet 

As I would be ; I am not yet acquainted 

With my strange darkness — in a year, perhaps, 

A month, a day, I shall know all. To-morrow — 

I shall be calm and rational to-morrow ; 

To-morrow is the first tremendous day 

When we shall wake to what is henceforth true, 

And shall be soon familiar as the dawn 

Which never wakens us again without it. 

I want to-morrow for my remedy, 

It's all new now. 



scene iv. BLIND LOVE. 151 

RAYMOND 

This is my punishment : 
The vengeance is not slow. 

avice {clinging to hint) 

O, leave her ! leave her ! 

HOPE 

Is he not gone ? I see no face I know ; 
The world is full of strangers — my sweet world 
That was so full of love. 

Enter Grey hastily. 

grey 
What ! Are you here ? 
What, in her presence? O you innocent child ! 
Here is the vilest, blackest, bitterest, treason 
That ever broke a heart ! 

hope 
Father ! 



grey 

Your father, 

But never his again. Out of our sight ! 



152 BLIND LOVE. act iv. 

See here, my dove, my flower — I'll keep you safe 

From such as he who would have cheated you 

To the altar steps. They had made all things sure : 

[pointing to Raymond and Avice. 
They were to fly to-night — to-night, do you hear ? 
Aye, on the very threshold of his vow T , 
Leaving his lily here, he would have gone 
With that foul poison-plant upon his breast — 
O, you are matched ! My curse upon you both ! 

hope (to Raymond) 
Was this your mercy ? Say it is not true ! 

GREY 

Blister your lips with any decent lie, 
And she'll believe you ! 

[Raymond shrinks and covers his face with his 
hands. Avice still clingi?ig to him. 

HOPE 

You have killed me now ; 
You have taken all from me, even my thoughts. 
I had still remembrances; still even my love : 
I had no cause to be ashamed of love 



scene iv. BLIND LOVE. 153 

Who gave it after wooing. . All is lost : 
All lovely days and faiths innumerable, 
Which made up all my life, lie in this tomb, 
This tomb whereon I dare not write a word, 
Because there is no word to write upon it 
But false, false, false ! 

GREY 

Aye false a thousand times. 

HOPE 

Do not say that again. Take me away. 

Father, he could not mean it ! Father, hide me ! 

[She looks once at Raymond, then turns away 
and falls on his father 7 s neck. 



154 BUND LOVE. act v. 



ACT V. 

Scene I. — A Room in Grey's House. 

Enter Grey and Carlton meeting. 

grey 
How is't with her to-day? 

CARLTON 

Ere I can answer 
I must be certified which way you ask. 
Will you have muffled words that show themselves 
For what they are not? Will you go blindfold 
To the very brink, and set your foot on flowers 
With nothing under ? I can lead you so, 
And leave you so —or will you take the truth ? 
I have that dagger in mine armoury — 
'Tis seldom asked for. 



scene i. BLIND LOVE. 155 

GREY 

I'm too old for truth : 
Time has so bruised me with his bufferings 
That a touch hurts me now. Too old for truth, 
Yet too familiar with her bitter looks 
For any mask to cheat me. Say your will, 
And like a meagre alms, the fact shall slip 
Through your closed fingers. 

CARLTON 

Then, she is no worse. 

GREY 

Why, then, she is no better ! O, my heart ! 
Why did I cross her in her brighter time 
Which was to be so short ? Not a rough word 
I ever spoke, but grates against me now — 
And she, that used to look so pitiful, 
With gentle pardons asked, and no wrong done, 
Scared often from that timid joy of hers 
As far as tears, were I to show her now 
These penetrations of my slow remorse, 
Would soothe me with her soft bewildered eyes 
And tell me truly she remembered not. 



156 BLIND LOVE. act v. 

She was so sweet, Carlton, she was so sweet, 

Remembering nothing done against herself, 

But taking all the common kindnesses 

For great bestowals — O, my fatal tongue 1 

Said I ' she was ' I , 

CARLTON 

Do not reproach yourself. 
Life is a mirror for such loving eyes 
To show them nothing harder than themselves ; 
We watchers from without, wasting our tears, 
Pity the grief which their unconscious magic 
Transforms before it touches them. 

GREY 

You talk 
Madly — for it is nothing else but grief 
That kills her now. 

CARLTON 

Be careful, friend ! she comes. 
[Hope is led in and supported to a couch. 



scene I. BLIXD LOVE. 157 

HOPE 

Stand not there doubting how to look at me 
But smile a bright good-morning, for to-day 
Is more than good for me. 

GREY 

How so, sweet heart ? 

HOPE 

Because it is my birthday. 

GREY 

Ah! 

HOPE 

No sighs ! 
Since you forgot it, you must be my debtor 
As I would have you, father, with no gift, 
For I have such a boundless boon to ask 
That all the birthdays I shall ever have 
May sum themselves in this, and take their gifts 
Before they come, so best. Come, sit by me, 
And let me lay my lips against your ear 
And whisper it as softly as a kiss ; 



158 BLIND LOVE, act v. 

Nay, closer yet — sixteen long years ago, 

Upon my first remembered birthday, father, 

You had me closer yet. What's this ? You shrink ■ 

Are you afraid of me ? 

grey {hastily) 

There is a message 
I should deliver — I'll return, and grant 
All your requests. [Exit Grey. 

hope {looking afeer him) 

Alas ! I fear he weeps. 

CARLTON 

Few men so near the final slopes of life 
Are pleased with talk about the first ascent. 

hope 
It was not for himself, it was for me. 
You cluster round me kindly, each one holding 
A screen, and thinking that he hides the place 
To which I walk, but I am looking at it 
Past all your pretty obstacles. It seems 
A fair land and a pleasant. But I go 



scene i. BLIND LOVE. 159 

Not as a saint, I am too weak for triumph, 
But merely having missed my place in life, 
Very tired and very certain of my rest. 



CARLTON 

Take you so placidly the thought of death ? 

HOPE 

As one who lies awake at night and hears 
How nightingales are singing in the woods, 
And from that far fine ecstasy divines 
That somewhere in the world there is a place 
Where he might be, full of untroubled music, 
With nothing harsher than a nightingale, 
And thinks, ' I will go there to-morrow night 
And be among the branches and the songs.' 
O, try that nobody should weep for me ! 
I have made no one happy, and 'tis hard 
To cause an hour of sadness 



CARLTON 

But they love you. 



160 BLIND LOVE. act v. 

HOPE 

I'd have their love no longer than my life, 

Or that of the first flower upon my grave ; 

Nay, it should die when I do, going with me 

And waiting with me till we meet again, 

Like something rare and precious which we hide 

Till the great feast-day, when we wear our crowns 

And show our treasures. 

CARLTON 

See, he comes again. 

Re-entei Grey. 

grey 
Now for your boon — 'tis yours before 'tis named. 
What can I do for you ? 

HOPE 

You will not let me 
Kneel at your feet ? 

GREY 

Be not so foolish, child ! 
Why plead so fiercely when you have my promise ? 



scene i. BLIND LOVE. 161 

hope (putti?ig her arms round him) 
I'll hold you to it then. I want your pardon 
For one who has offended. Do you love me 
Enough for this ? 

GREY 

O peace ! you shall not stain 
Your lips. 

HOPE 

O peace ! you shall not break my heart ! 
Shall Time, which wears away the sharpest grief, 
Do nothing against Anger ? You have had 
Your wrath — just wrath — is it not satisfied 
With a year's raging ? Let it go to sleep ! 
The Days, like a great host of armed men, 
March onward over all things and prevail ; 
They do not pause, they do not break their ranks, 
They sweep the unresisting Universe, 
And what they find they leave not as they found, 
But the most rugged and uncomely wastes 
Are levelled by the ceaseless tramp of Time, 
And even the precipice becomes a path, 
And ways whereon we fainted and despaired 

M 



162 BLIND LOVE. act v. 

Melt into prospects, and are beautiful. 
You must not stand against the general law: 
'Tis your necessity to yield to-day, 
As once it was your virtue to be stern. 

GREY 

That's but a Woman's logic ; all the proof 
Lies in the wish. But I am darker-hued, 
And cannot make a mirror of myself 
For every passing face. I am myself ; 
My friends must bear me as I am. 

HOPE 

I give 
My logic to your scorn ; hear but my tears, 
And yield your better judgment. O, my father ! 
I am passing from you quickly. Very soon 
Where you have seen my face and heard my voice 
There shall be nothing but the silent cloud 
Which is so near us now ; and I, within it, 
May lie asleep until the Master calls, 
Filled with some tender and contenting dream 
Which I divine not now, as a babe lies 
Untroubled by the tempests of the world, 



scene I. BLIND LOVE, 163 

Soothed by the smile that touches it. Perhaps 
This your last gentleness before I die 
Shall be remembered as I wake again ; 
Let me not wake with ' no ' upon my heart ! 
'Twill sadden you to see this empty couch 
And know I took this pain away with me. 

GREY 

Have pity, Hope ! 

HOPE 

O, is it not for you 
I plead ? I want to give you back your son 
Before you lose your daughter. 

GREY 

He has killed you ! 

HOPE 

Not he, mine own weak heart. Some happy lives 

Are like to landscape pictures ; each new touch 

Dwarfs and drives back what rilled the former scene. 

Till at the frame and foreground of the whole, 

A drift of flowers against a summer green 

Is more important than a city. These 

Pass brightly through their changes and have peace. 



164 BLIND LOVE. ACT v. 

But otherwise it is with her whose picture 

Holds nothing but a face \ through all the tints 

It grows, and all the touches strengthen it, 

And all the world is a background for it ; 

And so it sucks away the Painter's life. 

But there we lose comparison : the painter 

Sees his work done, and takes another face. 

Tis Art's perpetual miracle, to give 

All the cruse holds, yet keep it always full : 

Alas, we find no parallel for this 

Save when Love answers Love. Pray pardon me ; 

I wander through a thousand thoughts, and start 

If any touch me. 

GREY 

Will you go and rest ? 

HOPE 

Nay, but I have not won my boon. 

GREY 

Be patient ; 
Well talk of it to-morrow. Tis not well 
To turn your thoughts that way. 



scene i. BLIND LOVE. 165 

HOPE 

To turn my thoughts ? 
You do not change the river's course, because 
You push aside the leaves to look at it. 
Do not be hard to me ! 

GREY 

My dearest child 

HOPE 

now I know you are resolved against me ! 
Leave me, you love me not ! Was ever heart 
So beaten and so broken without help 

As this poor heart which shall so soon be cold, 
Which no one comforts now ! [She weeps. 

CARLTON 

Let her not weep ; 
She may die before our eyes ! 

GREY 

Have all you will I 
Nay sweet, nay bird, no tears — did she believe 

1 had the heart to baulk her ? Only tell me 
What I should do — I'd go to bitter Moscow 



166 BLIND LOVE act v. 

To fetch one smile ! Say, shall I bring him home, 
Myself! To-night? 

hope (looking up) 

Will you indeed do so ? 

GREY 

So ? Aye and twenty so's to win that look ; 
But I must have my guerdon. You must sleep, 
And eat, and mend ! 

HOPE 

O, with so light a heart 
I can go lightly up the hardest hills ! 
I was afraid you would not. 

GREY 

Calmly now, 
While I am absent. Think of something else, 
That's the true cure for all things. So, goodbye, 
And keep a tranquil face till I return ; 
No tears again ! Remember ! [Exit Grey. 

hope 

I have lured him 
To his own peace. 



scene I. BLIND LOVE. 167 

CARLTON 

I fear me, not to yours. 

HOPE 

My life is at its cadence ; all the skill 
Of all the world defers not the sure close 
By more than a few lingering passages, 
Which, if they sound like sorrow, only make 
The after-silence welcome. But for them 
There is a future ; if I join them not 
Before I die, they stand apart for ever, 
For my poor ghost should come against my will 
And wave them from each other bitterly : 
If I must haunt them, let it be with thoughts 
Of peace and pardon, clasping them together 
With the mere pity of remembering me 
As I would be remembered. 

CARLTON 

Now I lead you 
To your much-needed rest. 

[Exeunt Carlton and Hope. 



1 68 BLIND LOVE. 



ACT V. 



Scene II.— A Room in Raymond's House 
opening to a Garden. 

Enter Three Gentlemen. 

FIRST GENTLEMAN 

Will he be seen to-day ? 

SECOND GENTLEMAN 

Aye, in an hour ; 
If your name's on his list, you take your turn 
Among the audiences. 

FIRST GENTLEMAN 

Was ever rise 
So swift as this ? twelve little months ago 
Unheard of — now a column of the State ! 
Pray Heaven he reel not, but such sudden growths 
Are seldom deeply rooted. 

THIRD GENTLEMAN 

I have heard 
He seeks the public course with such a passion, 
Being less than happy in his proper home. 



scene ii. BLIND LOVE. 169 

FIRST GENTLEMAN 

Why, he hath a fair wife. 

THIRD GENTLEMAN 

Tush, there's the reason ! 
\ woman may be too fair for a wife. 

SECOND GENTLEMAN 

For shame ! For shame ! 

THIRD GENTLEMAN 

Nay, I malign her not ; 
She may be pure as starlight, but you want 
A comfortable candle for your book 
When you sit back i' the evening. 

SECOND GENTLEMAN (looking from the Window) 

Come aside. 
She is with him now. I saw them cross the lawn. 
He passes to his cabinet by this, 
And if he find us here before the time 
Twill grieve him deeply. 



170 BLIND LOVE. act v. 

THIRD GENTLEMAN 

Or, in simpler phrase, 
He'll rate you soundly ? 

SECOND GENTLEMAN 

Well, his courtesies 
Do sometimes take the shape of anger. 

THIRD GENTLEMAN 

Ah, 

We'll spare you. Come away. 

[Exeunt Gentlemen by a side door. 



Scene III. 
Enter Raymond from the Garden followed by Avice. 

Raymond (speaking as he enters) 
I have no more to say. 

avice 

Saying no more 
You have said nothing. 



scene in. BLIND LOVE. 171 

Raymond (turns and confronts her) 
How? 

avice (arranging her skirts) 

That's a great gust, 
But I'm unruffled. Will you go with me 
To the Duke's to-night? Tis not till twelve o'clock; 
There's time to cool. 

RAYMOND 

Avice ! 

AVICE 

Did you not say 
You had said all ? What tongues these husbands have, 
Who can say all, and nothing to the purpose, 
And after all, find something left unsaid 
Which was, perhaps, the only thing to say 
With any show of reason ! What's your will ? 

RAYMOND 

You cannot cheat me with this mask of scorn, 
While fire beneath the lids, and sobs i' the throat, 
And all the little feeble frame aquiver, 



172 BLIND LOVE. act v. 

Mock you, as if a child should run to your knee 
And cry, ' Look at me ; I'm asleep ! ' Be wise : 
You are not a child. 

AVICE 

I am angry — nothing else ! 

RAYMOND 

O, that need make no difference. Be angry, 
'Twill pass the time more quickly • my commands 
Reach not your temper, but your acts. 

AVICE 

I thank you 
For telling me the scope of your commands. 
Pray issue one ! I'll watch it curiously 
And see what happens. 

RAYMOND 

I must have your promise. 

AVICE 

Indeed ! And by what means ? 

RAYMOND 

You are my wife 



scene in. BLIND LOVE. 173 



Alas, I am ! 



AVICE 
RAYMOND 

You cannot anger me. 



AVICE 

Why, what a splendid Actor ! He's not angry, 
With all the signs of fury in his face, 
Voice, gesture, language, incoherent all 
With feigned similitude of wrath unfelt. 
I must applaud. 

RAYMOND 

I ask you for your promise ! 

avice {clapping her hands) 
Encore ! That tone was perfect ! 

RAYMOND 

You can hang 
That shining trifle which you call your heart 
Round any neck ; I had it here on mine 
A little longer than I wanted it — 
It can bear tossing; but I'll have the name 



174 BLIND LOVE. act v. 

Which I have given you, clear as mountain snow 
Which blushes if the sun but looks at it. 
There has been one low whisper ; if I hear 
Another 

AVICE 

Will you murder me ? 

Raymond (grasping her) 
I might 
Do that. 

AVICE 

Be proud that you can make me pale. 
I am a woman and you frighten me. 

RAYMOND 

Enough. Consider it at leisure. [Going. 

avice (in tears) 

Raymond ! 

RAYMOND 

O pardon me, my wife, the time is past. 
Water the rock and it shall teem with roses 



scene in. BLIND LOVE. 175 

Sooner than any praying by dead Love 
Shall rouse a pulse of life. It is not there. 

[Exit into his cabinet. 

avice (stamping and sobbing) 
That he should see me weep ! We should be made 
Of iron, we women, having so much more 
To bear than men have. This is not for love ; 
'Tis tremor of the nerves : a little more 
Of some hard-sounding gas i' the air I breathe ; 
A touch of coming thunder ; subtle scent 
Of hostile flowers — would strike me just as low, 
So poorly are we furnished for the conflict 
Wherein we are to die. Were I a man 
I would treat women gently. I have borne 
More than I should, but 'tis the last disdain 
He shall cast at me. I would cross the world 
To get beyond the limit of his touch, 
Yet I stay here. If I could drown myself 
Before his eyes — O 1 when the water closed 
So soft, so cold, so fast, upon my face 
Which he once thought so fair, I should not see 
Whether he stretched his hand ; I might go down 
Into the darkness, dreaming that he cared. 



176 BLIND LOVE. act v. 

Why does this ghastly fancy stand before me 
Like something that shall happen ? I'm not well ; 
I must get hence, go somewhere, anywhere 
Away from this inhuman faithless place 
Which took the name of home to poison me 
With deadly breathings. Anywhere from here ! 

[Exit Avice. 



Scene IV. 
Enter Grey and Second Gentleman. 

grey 
If you will give me leave to wait for him 
I'll undertake you blameless, 

SECOND GENTLEMAN 

Since I know you 
For what you are— his father — I've no choice. 
Pray seat yourself. He may be long. 

GREY 

I thank you. 
[Exit Second Gentleman. 



scene iv. BLIND LOVE. 177 

grey (a/one) 
The Fates who crown our moments, keep their crowns 
Till we have ceased to covet them. Time was 
When all this lackeyed greatness would have thrilled 
me 

To perfect rapture ; now it pierces me, 

* 

As it should him, with only the sharp thought 
Of her who should have shared it. Ha, he comes 
Before I looked for him. 

Enter Raymond. 

[Grey stands with averted face. 

Raymond (speaking to himself as he enters) 

I was too hard. 
Ill talk to her again. What, Avice ? 

[Grey turns and faces him. 

Raymond (starting back) 

Father ! 
grey 
Aye, if you call me so. 

Raymond (trying to recover himself) 
You are as welcome 

N 



178 BLIND LOVE. act v. 

As you will let me make you, though you come 
More like an apparition than a guest, 
Sudden and solemn. 

GREY 

As I seem, I am. 
The message which compels me to your presence 
Comes from the confines of another world. 



RAYMOND 

Compels you to my presence ! So, you leave me 

With no soft pretext for a doubt ! So be it ! 

Yet if you only face me like my fate 

Searching the weaker points to strike the deeper, 

Inexorable as that frosty hand 

Which touches summer thickets in the dark, 

And warns them of sure winter — yet I give you 

The heartiest welcome which these lips have uttered 

Since I became a host. This is my house, 

Father, and therefore yours. Command the whole ; 

I your chief servant will solicit you 

To take such entertainment as you can 

And pardon all defects. 



scene iv. BLIND LOVE. 179 

GREY 

There's much to pardon. 



RAYMOND 



I know it. 



GREY 

I am come to do an errand 
And so return. The time is short — as short 
As the last pause of an advancing tide 
Ere the wave breaks and covers all. Your cousin- 
Do you remember her ? She that was once 
Light of your life and mine — do you remember ? 
Hath bid me fetch you to her. 

RAYMOND 

Father, tell her 
I cannot come. 

GREY 

Will you be so consistent 
To the last moment ? Executioners 
Allow a dying boon. 

n 2 



180 BLIND LOVE. actv. 

RAYMOND 

I am afraid 
To ask your meaning. 

GREY 

You are slow to read it. 
She has touched the farther edge of that sweet life 
Which you have made so sad. It is her will 
To see you once ; and I must do her will : 
There's nothing left but this to do for her, 
Except to hide our faces when she dies, 
And hold our sobs back lest they vex her soul 
Which ever grieved for grief of others. 

RAYMOND 

Dying ? 
Why has she lived so long in such a world 
Not worth a moment of her ! I remember 
Things which I cannot speak of ! Just a smile-— 
Just one, which came before she smiled no longer 
And looked a lifetime of such innocent joy 
As seems impossible. Will it come back ? 
Will she smile so in heaven, forgetting me 
Who sent her there ? I cannot understand 



scene iv. BLIND LOVE. 181 

Why that which was so sweet should be so bitter ; 

But the image of that little tender smile, 

Which had no pathos in it, breaks my heart. 

I saw it, and I shrank to darkness from it, 

Longing to see no more, before I knew 

That she was dying. O, I'll go to her ! 

I think I wish that I may be too late ; 

That's base — but I was always base to her. 

Each way is terrible ; to see her face, 

Or to think always of it. Is she changed ? 

Shall I have power to bear it ? 

GREY 

Calm yourself : 
She must not see you thus. 

RAYMOND 

I know, I know. 
Doctor and nurse speak ever so — be quiet 
Under the pressure grinding you to dust ; 
Come softly through the half-closed door, stand still, 
Hush ! Be not troublesome with your despair, 
For she is dying. O ! what is it to her, 
So near the insensibilities of heaven, 
That any worthless heartstrings, left for ever, 



182 BLIND LOVE. act v. 

Crack audibly ? She shall have no more pain ; 
She never knew, she never guessed, what 'tis 
To stare into this inner darkness, seeing 
No star, and yet discerning everything 
And saying to the inseparable Self 
Which writhes and hesitates beside the pit, 
' Thou hast done this. Go down ! ' 

GREY 

I did not think 
You could have felt so deeply. 

RAYMOND 

No — you thought 
Because I did the wrong, I had no heart 
To feel the wrong I did. If there be such, 
Why, make their torments ready — but for me 
Hell is unnecessary. 

GREY 

Cease, my son. 
The foulest Past is cleansed by penitence, 
And sure I am you shall be pleaded for 
By angel's prayers. 



scene iv. BLIND LOVE. 183 

RAYMOND 

By hers ? If God be just 
They should be millstones at my neck. Come, father. 
Since I must lay my head upon this block 
Let not the stroke be slow. To show the sword, 
Whetted, and poised, and pausing, is not mercy. 
Lead and I follow — yet a word — I fear 
I may take flight upon the threshold. Tell me 
That J may know how to constrain myself.' 
What shall I see. 

GREY 

O, nothing terrible. 
Dying is not so different from living. 
For fairness, pallor; and for speaking, sighing; 
And for the careless shining of young eyes 
Washed bright by easy tears, a faint far glory 
Reflected from the place at which they gaze, 
To which they go. 

RAYMOND 

O, how you touch my wounds ! 
If Death be so like Life, that revelation, 
Which is so gentle for the purer sort, 



1 84 BLIND LOVE. act v. 

Must be, for some, exposure and dishonour 
Which mountains cannot cover. 



GREY 

She shall bring you 
To better thoughts. \Exewit Grey and Raymond. 



Scene V. — A Room in Grey's House, as before. 
Hope on the Couch, Avice kneeling beside 
her. 

hope 

And so you come to me 
To tell me that the treasure which you took 
Out of my trembling grasp, has proved so soon 
Too weighty for your own. 

avice 

Nay, not too weighty. 
I am strong enough* 

HOPE 

Well, you have cast it down. 



scene v. BLIND LOVE, 185 

AVICE 

Even so. 

HOPE 

Why did you touch it ? 

AVICE 

Is it thus 
You soothe me — with such passion in your voice ? 

HOPE 

Why left you not the love that was not yours 

To her who would have held it on her heart 

While the heart beat ? Why did you take my life, 

Not even to feed and satisfy your own, 

But just to crush it and have done with it 

Like some pernicious insect in your path ? 

You have done this, you have destroyed us both, 

With two sweeps of your careless onward hands 

That catch at something new across the fragments 

Of the scorned vase which held their former flowers — 

You have sinned thus, not as a woman sins 

With tears and turnings back, but airily 

Like some cold spirit with a woman's face 

Playing with pain because it has no fear 



1 86 BLIND LOVE act v. 

Having no heart. You that have done all this, 
Come, asking to be soothed — I have no answer ! 
Go, let me die in peace. 



AVICE 

Am I thus banished ? 
I thought you would have pitied me. I thought 
That standing on the edge of the next world 
You saw too much of it to be perplexed 
By all our stormy landscapes ; I believed you 
Already half an angel, but I'm glad 
To think you are too angrily alive 
To be near dying. 

HOPE 

O, if you had loved him, 
The pang which parted us had been my last : 
I were content to shut my eyes and take 
My necessary doom ; but now I see 
I was slain for pastime. 

AVICE 

Charge it upon him I 



scene v. BLIND LOVE. 187 

HOPE 
I charge it on myself ; 'tis an old fault 
In women, so to love with all their strength 
That they can find no strength without their love. 

AVICE 

Cousin, I would give up my worthless life 
To win yours back. 

HOPE 

Would you indeed do so ? 

AVICE 

Indeed, with all my heart. 

HOPE 

Why, then, forgive me 
Who thought you heartless. I shall take more love 
Into my grave than I have seen before it ; 
There shall be roses laid in these dead hands 
Which now have nothing in them. 



AVICE 

Talk not thus ; 



It is too pitiful. 



1 88 BLIND LOVE. act v. 

HOPE 
Are you so tender? 
For me these tears ? These tears are not for me ! 
O, when the rock is cleft, the water springs 
To any hand, but there was only one 
Able to cleave it I have often noted 
A tree, when a great wind has stirred the root, 
Shake at a breath ; even so will sights of pity 
Which we perceive not in our happy walks, 
Start up around us when our eyes are sad 
And make them rain at once. Speak truly to me, 
Speak truly to the dying, who so soon 
Shall read you to the depths — why do you weep ? 
[She takes Avice's face between her hands and looks 
fixedly at her. 
Is your heart breaking for the love of him 
Whom you would cheat with semblances of scorn ? 
Is it so breaking? Ah, you weep the more — 
I have the key of this fountain ; so, make ready 
To meet him. He is coming, 



avice 

Hide me ! Hide me ! 



scene v. BLIND LOVE. 189 

HOPE 

Be calm, he shall not see you. 



AVICE 



HOPE 



Wherefore comes he ? 



I sent for him. 



AVICE 

You, you ! But he is mine ! 
O do not take this vengeance for your wrongs. 
Leave him— I could notlive a day alone 
With mine own conscience and without his heart ; 
You are so good, you cannot understand 
What happens, when the world slips from your feet 
Without a hold on heaven — you can but fall — 
Fall — through the blank — to nothing. Save me, 

save me ! 
This is your work. 

HOPE 

Trust me. 

AVICE 

Why should I trust ? 
If I were you I would not give him up ; 



i 9 o BLIND LOVE. act v. 

Why should you be less faithless than myself ; 
What claim have I, except that I have killed you ? 
I had forgotten that I am his wife 
And you are all for duty ; there I hold him, 
There you submit — I am safe upon that ground — 
Am I not ? Answer me ! 

HOPE 

Alas, poor child, 
How well your tumult teaches me my peace ! 
I am beyond your sorrows and my own ; 
As, in the hollows of the roaring brook 
Lie little floors of darkness and of calm 
Where some forgotten foamflake, cast aside, 
Stays on the level water, moving not 
But breaking slowly all the summer day 
Till not a tear remains, so seems my life, 
As you rush past. The day is nearly done 
And the last bubble melts, and by to-morrow 
There shall not be a trace. Enough — he comes. 

[A vice conceals herself. 



scene vi. BLIND LOVE, 191 



Scene VI. 

Hope — Avice co?iceakd. Enter to them Grey and 
Raymond. Raymond stops short. Grey advances 
to Hope's couch. 

GREY 

I bring him — {he starts) Ah, my child ! 

HOPE 

You see a change. 
O father, it is nothing. Know you not 
Five sunset minutes change the great world more 
Than many hours of day ? The colours die, 
And the light deepens — do not wish it less — 
It shines before it ceases. 

GREY 

Let me raise you. 

HOPE 

No, touch me not, but make him come to me 
And lay his hand in mine. 



192 BLIND LOVE. act v. 

GREY 

Alas, my son ! 
If you can bear it, do as she desires. 

[Raymond falls on his knees by Hope. 

RAYMOND 

Do not forgive me, do not look at me ; 
There is no kind of pang I have not earned. 
Let me receive my wages and depart 
To mine own place. 

HOPE 

My life has been in vain, 
But my death heals you. Let my words abide, 
They are as medicine poured into your wounds, 
To sting — and then to soothe— and then to cure. 
Time draws this virtue from them. Knowing it, 
I can speak boldly, and you shall remember 
More than you hear ; that I have pardoned you 
Long since, and that my sleep is sweet to me 
And nothing mars it. I did love you well. 
My thoughts of you are tender as the dreams 
Where our dead faces smile to us again 
And we are not surprised. For you were mine 



BLIND LOVE. 193 



RAYMOND 

I am ! I am ! The madness of an hour- 



hope (putting her hand on his mouth) 
Hush — let me pass in gentleness and peace ! 
Cast not the dust of earth upon these wings 
Which should be white and spotless, as they catch 
Some edge of splendour from the open gates 
Ere they shall enter. Friends, there is a pause 
Before we part, and they who love and part 
Are ever wont to make some sweet exchange, 
Of word, or gift, or memory, which they take 
Into the distance, to console themselves. 
I have my keepsake ready — do not lose 
The hurrying moment — what have you for me ? 
If you have wronged me, do not think of it ; 

[ While she speaks Raymond rises and stand 
looking at her. 
My last hour is your own, what went before 
Shall take its colour ; let it be for me 
Goodbye at morning, with the day to come 
For those I leave, full of delicious hours 
Which I may think of as I pass afar, 

o 



191. BLIND LOVE. act v. 

Which I may see, when I have quite forgotten 
The murmurs and the agonies of life. 
Give me this comfort now before I die, 
That I may hear the harmonies of Heaven 
Begin, before I join them. Avice ! Come ! 

[Avice enters and throws herself at Raymond's./^?/. 
Take her the second time, and be the first 
Never remembered more ! 

RAYMOND 

Kneel not to me ; 
I have no heart for anger or for love, 
My life is going down into this grave. 

[He raises Avice. 

Enter Vernon behind. 

AVICE 

Will you, in time, remember that you loved me ? 

[She hides her face on Raymond's heart. 

RAYMOND 

O what is Time but memory of time 

Which is no more ! Be patient with me, wife, 

Mine was the greater sin. 



scene vi. BLIND LOVE. 195 

hope {speaking very softly) 

Here is the seat, 
And here the sunset stays upon your face — 
I'll lead you one step farther. Shall I tell you 
How beautiful it is ? I can see all \ 
I'll keep it all for you. [She sighs. 

GREY 

Be still — she sleeps ! 

vernon {who is standing by the couch) 
Say what you will — she's dead ! 



the end. 



o 2 



CYRIL. 



FOUR SCENES FROM A LIFE. 



PERSONS REPRESENTED. 



Cyril. 

Mrs. Vere, his Mother. 

The Duchess of Lansdale 

\ his Mothers Friends. 
Lord Stanerly 

Cyril's College Friends. 



Scene I. — Cyril? s Rooms at College. 

Scene II. — Mrs. Vere's Drawing-room in London. 



PART L— CHOICE. 

Scene I. — Cyril's Room. After Supper. 
Cyril and his Friends. 

FIRST FRIEND 

So, having crowned you for the second time, 
We say good-night. 

CYRIL 

How for the second time ? 

FIRST FRIEND 

You were crowned first, when these astonished airs 
Took such a crowd of ' Cyrils ' from our lips 
Echo was crushed among them ; when we heard 
Your name in its own place, the top of honour ; 
Working its little miracle at once, 



2 00 CHOICE. PART I. 

For Grey was pleased, and Essingdon surprised ; 
Two sights our Cambridge never saw before. 

SECOND FRIEND 

Surprised ? You wrong my judgment and his fame. 

FIRST FRIEND 

Well, you reared up your eyelashes, and said 

' Cyril ? Indeed ! ' When made you such a speech 

Foodless, till now ? I know you had not lunched. 

SECOND FRIEND 

Tut ! tut ! I had some tea. 

CYRIL 

O ! that explains it ! 
I thought the tea-light glistened in your eyes 
And warmed you with unwonted eloquence. 
But not the less I thank you — my success 
Reveals a world of hidden love. Good-night. 

\They take leave. 

THIRD FRIEND 

No satire after supper, by your leave ! 
'Twill spoil your dreams. 



SCENE L CHOICE. 20I 

CYRIL 

I have no need to dream. 

THIRD FRIEND 

Ay, Cyril, a proud word ! He needs not dream 
Who has achieved. I'm sorry for the world, 
Because achievement ever means farewell, 
And one may weep in parting from a dream. 

CYRIL 

' Farewell ' is as a shield, whose other face 
Bears the strong word ' Advance.' 

THIRD FRIEND 

I lose my breath. 
Where will this going spirit take you? First 
A heap of unconsidered scholarships, 
Last year the Craven — Senior Wrangler now — 
Both sides of knowledge scaled ! Vouchsafe to rest 
On the clear summit, pass not while we gaze 
From Alp to Andes ! 

CYRIL 

Fie ! You do but mock 
My dumb ambitions with such hyperbole ! 



202 CHOICE. PART I. 

THIRD FRIEND 

In your vocabulary, hyperbole 
Is construed into fact. 

CYRIL 

No, no. Good-night. 

{Exit Third Friend. 

FOURTH FRIEND 

That which you worked for, Cyril, you have won, 
But I must spur you with reproachful praise 
To labours half completed. You were once 
The fairest promise in my crew — you paused 
Just when by two short weeks of guided toil 
You might have gained that hold upon the water ! 
(I flatter not) you paused, before you gained it. 
'Tis not too late — you will have leisure now — 
If once you get that grip upon the water 
I'll say you are the foremost man alive. 

CYRIL 

Well, captain, you shall write my epitaph 
And say ' He might have been.' 



scene i. CHOICE. 203 

FOURTH FRIEND 

I should be loth 
To give you such a i finis.' Think of it ! 

[Exit Fourth Friend. A group advances to 
take leave. 

ONE 

Good-bye, old fellow. 

another 

When you're chancellor 
Make me your secretary ! 

another 

Not his line, 
He speaks too well to wait. 

another 

Aye, when St. Stephen's 
Resounds with him, and in the streets men ask 
' Have you read Cyril's speech ? ' c When, do you 

think, 
He was most great — now ? Or in that assault 
Which hurled the Cabinet to earth last year?* 
We shall behold each other, and recall 



204 CHOICE. PART I. 

The first young roarings of his thunder-talk 
In our debates ! 

ANOTHER 

And some of usi will laugh 
To think how well we thought we answered him, 
Our monarch in disguise, only not crowned 
Because he had not stretched his hand out. 

ANOTHER 

Cyril, 
You shall hear clarions in your sleep to-night. 

[Exeunt all but one friend and Cyril. 



You are sad, CyriL 



friend 

CYRIL 

Only tired. 



FRIEND 

But I, 

Who see your heart, can see how ill they read it ; 
Decyphering all the titles of your fame 
Blind to its import. 



scene i. CHOICE. 205 

CYRIL 

Speak, interpreter ; 
Reveal the thought they missed. 

FRIEND 

The thought is — Home ; 
For when a wind sweeps over life, the chord 
That answers first is still the chord of Love. 
Till you have seen your glory by the light 
Of those soft faces from Northamptonshire 
You are afraid of it. I know you, Cyril ; 
The Mother's joy, the Sister's sunny boast, 
The boy's roused hope and brother-rivalry, 
These are your chorus. Our acclaiming voices, 
Till these have sounded, are impertinent, 
Like stray orchestral tunings, that affront 
His ears who waits for Joachim. 

[Cyril covers his face with his hands. 
Forgive 
The rashness of my sympathy. You shrink 
Because I turn the handle of your heart ? 
Nay, I'll not enter. Ere I made a step, 
There was an open window in your eyes 
That showed me all. 



206 CHOICE, PART I. 

CYRIL 

Aye, did it show you all ? 
That were a window worth the looking through ! 
Friend, you know more than I. 

FRIEND 

Tis possible. 
Ships have I seen that rode the tempest out 
But stranded in the calm ! I'll counsel you, 
Being your friend— be wary in the calm ! 
That shallow stillness drifts you to a shoal 
And tells you all the while you have not moved. 
Let the dear home embrace and let you go, 
But not entangle you. There lies your peril. 

CYRIL 

You think so ? 

FRIEND 

Nay, I know it. Never think 
I scorn that ease which I would sting you from ; 
The lovely danger and the tender sleep 
Spread between you and greatness. For the heights 
Your soul was born, therefore I bid you mount ; 



scene i. CHOICE. 207 

Let not the tranquil virtue of your love 
Become temptation ! 

CYRIL 

O, you speak blind words ! 
Blind as a poniard which perceives no wound 
Though its. point touch the heart. Yet will I thank 

you, 
For words, aye and the winds that carry them, 
Are full of seeds ; we breathe them as we walk, 
Nor see what forces of unconscious growth 
We take into our souls. I'll talk to you 
Another time. Good-night. 

FRIEND 

What, have I vexed you 
With frank goodwill ? Are you so soon a king 
Who must be answered, but not questioned ? Cyril, 
Beware of pride ! 

CYRIL 

Good night. 



FRIEND 

Why then, good night. 
Since you dismiss me. I am sorry for it. 



208 CHOICE. PART I. 

cyril (faking him by the shoulders goodhumouredly) 
Take your intolerable wisdom hence ; 
111 beg your pardon when we meet again, 
Now I want peace. 

FRIEND 

I knew you did. Good night. [Exit. 
[Cyril stands silent with clasped hands as if 
overpowered with thought — then speaks 
suddenly : 

CYRIL 

A little — helpless — soft — three-summered child 

Working for bread ! A man of fourscore years 

Dying before he hears the name of Christ ! 

Of Christ, who died two thousand years ago 

With prints of children's kisses on His hands 

Beside the nails — and died for only this, 

That men should love each other, and know Him. 

O, in the darkness of our Christendom 

To wander eighty years without a star 

And die bewildered, as you hear of life 

For the first time ! It might have been myself, — 

And I, who know it, am alive, awake, 



scene i. CHOICE. 209 

Strong, full of victory — nay, what can I do, 
What is there left for me to do, but go 
And pour the medicine of my Master's Name 
Into these gaping wounds which groan for Him, 
This dreadful Christian land, which sets her babes 
To toil, and thrusts away her wearied hearts, 
Without their rest, and flaunts her hollow cross 
Before the nations like a self-crowned saint, 
And buys and sells and prospers and is cruel ! 
If I should say I heard Him in the night 
Cry ' Follow me ' men would believe me mad ; 
Aye, shake their heads and make allowance for me, 
Because I hear when they are deaf. I think 
It was not only by Gennesareth 
That He cried i Follow me.' O ! in that land, 
That milk-and-honey land, compassionate 
Of all her children, by necessity, 
Because God made her flowing for their need, 
How wept He for the poor 3 Why, all His words 
His tender wisdom, sorrowful rebuke, 
Trumpet of hope or thunder of command, 
Or whisper from the vast serene of Truth 
Which no man sees and lives, were incomplete 
Without that cadence ' Care ye for the poor 1 
p 



2IO CHOICE. PART I. 

What would He say in England, where skies freeze 
And cities starve the nakedness of want ? 
What of our souls that perish at church-doors, 
Our harvests rotting while the reapers feast ? 
Receive me, few that labour ! Not by choice, 
By force I join you, having seen these things, 
Henceforth unable to avert mine eyes, 
But grateful for this mist and help of tears 
Whereby the vision grows endurable ! [A pause. 

I do suppose this is the sacrifice 
Required of me, — that I should slay their hopes 
Gathered around my feet confidingly 
Like children certain of their coming joy. 
I grieve more than I should — so small a thing 
To give — a cost not worth the counting — yet 
All that we have. I quote the Widow's mite, 
And wonder if she left a son at home 
Who grudged it. That would make the giving hard. 

[A pause. 
A man is happy, having two dear homes 
Though he leave both. And this, the first, consoled 
For my departure, yet not cold to me, 
Wise, beautiful, benignant, and beloved, 
Left, but not lost, — a root from which I grow, 



SCENE I. CHOICE. 211 

Not a mere ground to leap from — Ah, farewellj 

I feel not how the presence of this time, 

The shadow of these shrines, this friendship-world, 

Gladness of toil and glee of holyday, 

Hope, difficulty, failure, fault, and glory, 

Can pass into remembrance ! But, from these, 

I move and linger to the deeper home 

Lying within my life, there still to lie 

Though the life change. Now, while my triumph 

shines 
On those soft faces in Northamptonshire, 
I think about the cloud which I must bring. 
If I had grieved them sooner, I could bear 
Better to grieve them now ; but I, who made 
Their Paradise, must drive them out of it 
Although they have not sinned. It must be done. 
I would my heart were broken into words 
That they might read it piece by piece, so learning 
The thing that I must do and they must bear. 
How beautiful were Life, if we could make 
All our steps forward, tangled by no pause, 
Whether it be but flowers about the feet, 
Or serpents in the path. I think the martyrs 
Felt not the death they feared not, but they felt 

p 2 



212 CHOICE. PARTI. 

Only the pangs of all those pleading eyes 
Which held them from it. What a child am I 
To let my little burden seem so great ! 



Scene II. — The Drawingroom of Mrs. Vere 
(Cyril's Mother). 

Mrs. Vere — Duchess of Lanslade — Lord 
Stanerly. 

duchess 
You shine beneath your lustre of good news 
Like a ring stirred in sunlight. If I talk 
Till you drop down with listening, half my joy 
Is still untold. I knew him from a child ; 
A month between my soldier's age and his — 
Ah, when they went so grievously to school 
Who thought the little pale-face had such brains ? 

MRS. vere 
He was before his elders. I can see 
How the class towered around him. I was vexed 
Until I found the youngest of his mates 
Had two years more of growth. 



scene ii. CHOICE. 213 

DUCHESS 

My Alfred's height 
Served but to make conspicuous idleness — 
Well, it becomes him now. 

MRS. VERE 

He looks so well 
In regimentals, 

DUCHESS 

Make no vain pretence 
To grace him with a thought ! Me he contents. 
(Poor boy, I wish he were beside us now !) 
Your themes are greater. When your victor comes 
Tell him how glad I am. 

MRS. VERE 

He has a heart 
Quick to discern a friend. 

DUCHESS 

Blanche told us first ; 
Rosy and breathless with her news she broke 
Upon my toilet — I forgave it her — 
All the dear glories of her playfellow 
She counts her own. You should have seen the child ! 



214 CHOICE. PART I. 

mrs. vere (to Lord Stanerly) 
You have said nothing yet. 

LORD STANERLY 

I think the more. 
I waited for this day. Now he fulfils 
Uttermost hope ; 'tis no mere student-crown 
Marking a life for leisure ; this is power ; 
I tested and am sure of it — this hand 
Will do triumphantly what work it finds. 
You'll trust him to me? 

MRS. VERE. 

Do you ask for him ? 

LORD STANERLY 

Hark in your ear — the chief has heard of him : 
Give me one year to pave his working-path, 
And it shall lead him to the Cabinet 

MRS. VERE 

What — a career ? You promise it ! 

LORD STANERLY 

I swear it ; 
You need uot thank me ; we are proud of him : 
I speak with knowledge. 



scene ii. CHOICE. 215 

MRS. VERE 

All my dreams at once ! 
I tremble with this weight of joy. 

LORD STANERLY 

We leave you 
To grow familiar with it. 

DUCHESS 

When he comes 
Give him my love. Make him remember Blanche, 
Sprung into womanhood, but losing not 
The careless magic of those childish hours 
When he heaped meadow-gold about her feet 
And called her ' little wife ! \ 

MRS. VERE 

You are too kind 
With such remembrances. 

[They shake hands. Exeunt Duchess and 
Lord Stanerly. 

mrs. vere (alone) 

His ' little wife ■ ? 
Scarce big enough for such distinction now ; 



216 CHOICE. PART I. 

I'll not remind him. Strange that she should like 
To mention her inglorious Alfred here ; 
There's no accounting for these mother-hearts ! 
I should be lenient — being set, myself, 
Above all need or reach of charity. 

! I am happy ; in my splendid sky 

There's not a threatening finger-breadth of cloud ; 

1 fear to fall asleep, lest I should die 
Full-handed in the leisure of my glory 

Ere I have quaffed it. See, he should be here ! 

[Looks at her watch. 
Ah — the dear step ! 

Enter Cyril. She hurries to meet him. 

MRS. VERE 

My king ! My pride ! My darling ! 

CYRIL 

Dear mother ! [They embrace. 

MRS. VERE 

You are pale — you have done all, 
And have our full permission to be tired ! 
You must rest now, my Cyril — for a month 



scene ii. CHOICE. 217 

You shall lie down in fern and watch the clouds, 

And sigh among the singing of the birds, 

And see the sweet flower-problems solve themselves 

Without your help, and never think at all, 

But keep a novel ready by your hand, 

Turning no page ; so shall you come refreshed 

Where that impatient Future waits for you 

To mount and rein and ride it. 

CYRIL 

I am glad 
That you are pleased. 

MRS. VERE 

You are so like a man ; 
Ashamed to show that you are satisfied : 
Are you too proud for this ? Come, let me coax you ! 
Confess your triumph like a fault, and make 
Decent excuse ; tell us you could not help it 
Being born so wise ; or say you worked so hard 
Because the work was easy ; that success 
Comes more by chance than merit — talk your fill 
Of nonsense, so it smooth you into smiles : 
I'll question nothing if I see the smiles, 
I'm pining for them. 



218 CHOICE. PART I. 

CYRIL 

Mother, be content ! 
This day is yours — we'll keep it all for joy ; 
A rose upon the threshold, which we lift 
To our hearts, before we enter. 

MRS. VERE 

Ah, you reach 
After new crowns. I know what lies for you 
Beyond that threshold. You shall enter, Cyril ! 
So would I have a man, afire for work ! 
Women should arm their knights, but times are vile 
When the soft hand of service and caress 
Is forced to goad the loiterers ; you shall find 
I have prepared the way. 

CYRIL 

But, tell me, how ? 

MRS. VERE 

Lord Stanerly was here, your father's friend, 
Whose eye has watched you with expectancy 
Slow kindling into welcome. You are his, 
Nay rather he is yours ; among your honours 



scene ii. CHOICE. 219 

He too was mastered. He has pledged his word, 
He makes you — Cyril, do not laugh at me ; 
You shall have office while the year is young ; 
But I pass through the present morning light 
To the near noon — you shall be Premier, Cyril ; 
I say it, I, your mother — ere I am old 
All men shall point and whisper where I pass 
1 There goes his mother.' 

CYRIL 

(Aside) I would fain have waited, 
But this involuntary falseness drives me 
Against the pain of truth. (Aloud) Mother, I'll ask you 
If I have done my best ? 

MRS. VERE 

Why, you have done 
Best of the w r orld. 

CYRIL 

Then have I wrung from life 
This guerdon, say this justice, that my choice 
Is free. 

MRS. VERE 

Your choice? But Fortune lackeys you, 



220 CHOICE. PART I. 

Assiduous, anxious, she forestalls your choice 
With more than it dared dream of. 

cyril 1 

So she does ; 

But not as you would have her. Dearest mother, 

Give me the right to mould my life. 

MRS. VERE 

What mean you 
By this strange harping upon l choice ' and ' right ' ? 

CYRIL 

! not my right, sweet mother, but my need ! 

1 speak because we are alone. I pause 

On my first height to draw my breath and gaze — 
I see but two things — misery and God. 

MRS. VERE 

I hear you not aright. 

CYRIL 

Beside our path 
There lies a lovely world ; warm distances, 
Whose softness penetrates the nearer ways, 
Making the tiniest grass-blade at our feet 
A promise and a mystery. How full 



SCENE II. CHOICE. 221 

Is growing Earth of Heaven ! There's not a tint 

But tells us how the sunshine tempered it ; 

How all the stems reach upward, uttering 

Their protest against Darkness ! Everywhere 

We tread on revelations and appeals, 

And for the soul that sees and construes them 

Nothing is wanting. This would be to walk 

Through beauty into holiness. But O ! 

Hosts of blind souls are dying everywhere 

Out of the limits of our natural day ; 

Prostrate in dust, knowing of this sweet earth 

Nothing but stains and thorns. They are half the 

world 
For which He died ; we, the bright other half, 
We on the heights, we in the happy airs, 
What can we do but stretch our arms to them ? 

MRS. VERE 

I would not check your generous pity, son ; 
Give what you will. 

CYRIL 

But I will give myself ! 
Little enough ; yet it may save a child 
Or comfort a worn woman. 



222 CHOICE. PART I. 

MRS. VERE 

You are mad ! 
Was it for this you toiled and won your wreath ? 
What would you do ? 

CYRIL 

Mother, there is a place 
Where little helpless infants work for bread 
And old men die without the name of Christ. 
You would not wish to keep me from that place 
Which cries aloud for me ? 

MRS. VERE 

This is a fever ; 
It is the too much working of your brain, 
You must be soothed and saved from reckless acts 
Till you are stronger. Such a heat as this, 
In the first blundering ages of the world, 
Made monks and foolish hermits. 

CYRIL 

Nay, not so ; 
For these recluses were the cowards of God ; 
They loved, but could not trust Him. They beheld 



scene II. CHOICE. 223 

The tumult of that sea whereon He walks 
And fled; but I will cross the waves to Him, 
Making my very faithlessness a prayer, 
Sure of Him though I sink. 

MRS. VERE 

Alas, alas ! 
How shall I reason with you ? You have heard 
Some strange fanatic. Only grant me this ; 
Wait for the teaching processes of Time ; 
You shall convince yourself ; your wiser thoughts 
Shall temper these conclusions. Test them thus ; 
If all men dreamed like you, God's goodly world 
Would be a desert. 

CYRIL 

No, a Paradise, 
Where those who take His bounty with one hand 
Would give it with the other, and grow poor 
By making many rich. 

MRS. VERE 

I would I knew 
What man it is who has bewitched you thus ! 



224 CHOICE. PART I. 

CYRIL 

Why should it seem incredible that God 
Who made me, speaks to me ? You think He made 
me? 

mrs. vere {weeping) 
I know what havoc of familiar duty 
This wild religion makes ! You are too good 
For plain commands like honouring your mother ! 

CYRIL 

gentle mother, never wroth till now, 
Now in love only, pardon, as you used 

To pardon all our wrongs and waywardness — 
The gay ingratitude of childish hearts 
Which count no cost because they feel no pang ! 
No preacher but yourself converted me ; 
You led me up to God. 

MRS. VERE 

I, Cyril? 

CYRIL 

You! 

1 knew it not till lately, when I found 



scene ii. CHOICE. 225 

This, in the silent treasury of gifts 
Poured from your ceaseless hand. How long ago 
I cannot tell — I see myself a child 
To whom infinity, and life, and death 
Were like a great lawn in a parable 
Beside a pleasant river. As I walked 
On our own lawn, half-conscious of such thoughts, 
Stirring like sap that shall force out the flower 
When the time comes, you caught me from the grass 
And showed where I had nearly set my foot 
On some slight miracle of tiny life : 
4 God made it/ so you said ; ' destroy it not ! ' 
I, loving that kind lesson, answered you 
In wonder, c Are all children in the world 
Taught to be tender? Or do these things die 
Under a thousand careless feet ? ' Perchance 
I thought, if so, what use in saving one. 
But you, with deeper logic, ' What I say 
Is for yourself. You see, and you are taught, 
And you must save ! ' O, mother, pluck the fruit 
Of your own seed — all that I am is yours. 
As in the street by venerable walls 
Some passer strays, and hears the softened choir, 
And takes a sweet psalm-fragment on his lips, 

Q 



226 CHOICE. PARJ I. 

Singing it as he walks, but knowing not 
Where it was learnt, till suddenly he wakes 
And in the city's heart remembers it, 
And fits the tune with holy words, well-pleased 
To find himself at worship — such am I. 
Out of the music of your heart you gave 
One note, which I have murmured till it swells 
To a litany of angels. 

mrs. vere {falls on his neck) 
Ah, my son, 
Die not from me because you are so good ! 
Live only, and I cross you not ! 

CYRIL 

Your word 
Abides, and I, who see and know, must save 
All that I can. If I be any worth 
(I dare not think so), mother • if my toil 
Have won what you and I suppose a crown, 
Nay, not a crown, a sword — we cast it low 
At those dear Feet, to take it from those Hands. 
Now for the joy of service, and the rest 



scene ii. CHOICE. 227 

Of work, and all the breaking lights of Hope 
That make a constellation of the sky 
While sleepers call it night ; so to walk on 
Till the Day dawn and all the voices blend 
In one vast welcome to our risen Lord ! 



22S TRIAL. PART II. 



PART II.— TRIAL. 
Cyril in his study. Evening. 

CYRIL 

The tree of life, earth-rooted, blooms in heaven 
Where its height reaches. Our impatient faith 
Outstrips our hope, and at the base of growth 
Clamours for fruit. If here it dropped for us 
Hovv should it ripen in that rich Beyond 
For which we work ? We can afford to wait 
Being so sure. Thus have I conned my task ; 
Yet by long waiting surest Hope grows sick. 
What boots nice ordering of a feast for him 
Who faints upon the threshold ? What the light 
Of far-off welcome, for blind hearts that break 
Worn out with travelling homeward? O ! I want 
The music of possession ! One It-is 
Outweighs a world of Shall-be's. If I knew 
That I had gained one soul — that I could set 



scene i. TRIAL. 229 

One trophy on my heart, with i this is mine — 

Mine and no other's ! ' — when I see the brink 

Lean over darkness, if I once could stand 

A wall upon the slope of that despair 

To save one dangerous traveller, seizing him 

Just as he falls, whether by will or choice — 

If, reeling with the shock of victory, 

I, with that joyful burden on my breast 

Could reach my Master's feet — let it there crush me, 

What matter, so the triumph crush me there ! 

But that were easy crowning. Not the toil, 

But the utter darkness of the toil appals me. 

The saints of old saw where their weapons struck, 

Aye, they endured as verily seeing Him 

Who is for us invisible. He came 

About them as Day comes about the world ; 

The comfort of His glory strengthened them 

When they beheld it, for they were not left 

To wish and murmur, desolate with doubt 

(Our palmless martyrdom) ; they saw and heard, 

And grasped and handled their substantial hopes. 

Could he doubt heaven, for whom the car of fire 

Rose, bearing from his gaze the friend beloved ? 

Or they for whom the waters split and stood 



230 TRIAL, part 11. 

A two-fold wall, could they deny God's power ? 

Could she mistrust the pity of God, whose arms 

Drearily wrapt about her weeping face 

Were severed into swift embrace, receiving 

Her own from the dead again ? Was not their life 

Transparent for the Deity within 

As a vast allegory ? I remember 

Ten years ago, when I began to think, 

How fair the old Greek life appeared to me, 

That creed of fairy tales which left no nook 

Of the rich world a blank — all populous 

With superhuman fancies ; and I thought 

This, not being true, was yet more beautiful 

Than any truth ; and had these fancies been 

Noble and pure as they were beautiful 

I could have wished to die believing them ; 

Then sprang the thought How was it? These things 

were 
A Past for ever ; for we cannot pierce 
The deep of years and catch them in the fact, 
And find the living souls who lived among them ; 
The tale was evermore a tale ; the Greek 
Heard ever from his father of the gods, 
Sat in the lovely leisure of the woods 



scene i. TRIAL. 231 

And dreamed of Dryads never seen. Lo, then 
Truth leaped upon me like an armed man, 
And I fell down and worshipped. I beheld, 
Knew, felt that God had once been in the world ; 
That old familiar Bible of my youth, 
Learnt as a task and reverenced as a rule, 
Became a living wonder and a power 
New from that moment, never read again 
With the same eyes. To me the universe 
Was one sublime tradition \ not a cloud 
But traced His pathway through the wilderness, 
And not a tree but talked of Olivet. 

Why do I say this now? My faith is weak, 

It wavers, it is weary, but it \i faith ! 

Like the faint life which in a sick man's heart 

Persists, half- quenched, and seems about to cease 

A thousand times, and yet a thousand times 

Revives, invisible to watching eyes 

But always there, and growing even through swoons 

To link the latter to the former health ; 

So trembling it persists, and so believes 

With unbelief, and shall be strong at last 

Reaching to deathless hope across despair. 



232 TRIAL. TART II. 

E?iter Markham. 

CYRIL 

O ! not to-night ! 

MARKHAM 

How, friend — you welcome me 
Strangely. 

CYRIL 

You come like Mephistophiles 
To tempt me when I waver. 

MARKHAM 

Rather say 
To help you when you stumble. 

CYRIL 

Ay, but to help me 
Into that path whereon I would not walk. 

MARKHAM 

So — you are weak — you strike before I threaten. 
Are you that miracle, an honest saint, 
Who, having braced his armour on, confesses 



scene i. TRIAL. 233 

That it has flaws, and that he fears a wound ? 
What has dismayed you ? 

CYRIL 

Only solitude 
And my own soul. I perish in the calm. 
You, like a new wind, shake my sleeping sails 
Against their work ; so come, refreshing shock, 
And 111 encounter you. 

MARK HAM 

Lift the metaphor 
And let us see the fact — you are not content 

CYRIL 

Is any man content ? 

MARK HAM 

We men of earth, 
Who see but with our eyes, and think life short 
For all our eyes can show us, are content. 

CYRIL 

If your philosophy comes but by gazing 



234 TRIAL. part ii. 

Make the gaze deep, and you shall learn in time 
Enough of noble sadness ; for I think 
All men who look around them, and within, 
Take leave of their boy-laughter. 

MARKHAM 

Say you so, 
Believing that God rules the world He made 
And made for His own ruling ? Infidels 
Put such a creed to shame. I hold, myself, 
A deaf Law better than a scornful God 
Who hears and heeds not. In the hollow Past 
Under the root of Time, only discerned 
By penetrative eyes of after-thought, 
Was movement — you would say the Spirit moved, 
But I, the Matter • germs evolving laws, 
Or laws in germ, but only by their work 
Revealed. We, looking from these latter heights, 
Can trace them, step by step, and none astray, 
None needless, so that from the vague At-first, 
Wherein all things seemed possible, there grew 
(Because each moment limited the next) 
These final certainties, which cannot be 
Other than as they are. Did we know all 



scene i. TRIAL. 235 

(Haply we shall) we should perceive how all, 
All kinds, all shapes, all shades of difference, 
All acts, all thoughts, all signs and modes of being, 
Are as they must be ; wheresoe'er you touch 
The interminable chain, you touch a link, 
Result and cause — a moment, which concludes 
The Past, begins the Future. Therefore Life 
Must be received in patience ; as we live 
We mend and mould, and hand it to our sons 
More gently than we took it from our sires, 

CYRIL 

Where learned you this strange history ? 



MARKHAM 



Do you ask ? 



Behold a pupil of the Universe ! 



CYRIL 

Lo, friend, you deem me credulous, and proclaim 

(You, uncommissioned by a miracle) 

The top of mystery ! Your logic builds 

On likelihood ; a balance, not a base, 

Safe till disturbed. I wait a surer proof. 

At every point and pause of your advance 



236 TRIAL. part ii. 

You pass an ambush, and neglect a doubt, 

And choose one path among a thousand. Nay, 

Tis a hard task to prove by circumstance 

In all its motives and particulars 

Merely one deed, done by one living man, 

And would you make the world by't? Pray you 

tell me 
How many million moments in the years 
Did pass, whereat some tiny difference 
May not have changed it all ? Some sudden witness 
(If such there were) might burst upon you now 
And quench you with a fatal ' thus it was/ 
Leaving you dumb for ever. Sure I am 
It might teach angels sarcasm, to behold 
These dust-born sticklers, bound by etiquette 
Never to mention God in His own world, 
Who guess through all the ages, and devise 
Gossip, about Creation. 

MARKHAM 

This is grand ! 
I love you in this humour. Let's sit down 
And fight in peace. 

\He seats himself. Cyril remains standing 
at the window. 



scene i. TRIAL. 237 

That was a clattering phrase 
That ' gossip of creation ' — I perceive 
You fc stand up ' like the poet's ' man in wrath ' 
(He should have written ' woman ') and proclaim 
That you ' have felt,' not reasoned. 

CYRIL 

Reason, friend, 
Is only half the mystery of Man ; 
Till you have felt a truth it is not yours 
Though Reason grasp it in her iron hand. 
I have heard learn'd musicians, who by the hour 
Would stuff you with elaborate sequences 
And fretful involutions ; faultless all, 
Ingenious, satisfactory and cold, 
Not to be answered — till a Master came 
And with some sudden simple turn of sound 
Would charm you to unreasonable tears 
At his fifth note. 

MARKHAM 

I am too plain a man 
To follow argument by parable. 

CYRIL 

One greater than ourselves held parable 
The fittest teaching for the plainest men. 



238 TRIAL. part 11. 

MARKHAM 

You pass the question. 

CYRIL 

But I touch in passing. 
Let us speak heart to heart. This creed of yours 
Is not the sole philosophy. We, who judge 
By fruits, and tracing, not too certainly, 
The backward story of this various world, 
Divine an undetected difference 
In each unknown Beginning, before growth, 
I think we reason no whit worse than you 
Who, as the long lines lessen to a point, 
Believe they issued from it ; making sense 
The measure of the Thing which it perceives, 
Not of its own perception. Circumstance 
Stretched through incalculable tracts of Time 
Life's limit, mould, condition, is to you 
A god — to us a great Epiphany. 
We wonder — and examine — and adore ; 
You wonder — and examine — and deny : 
Which is more wise ? 

markham {rising and joining Cyril at the windoiu) 
This is the way with you, 
You run all themes to one. I meant to talk 



scene i. TRIAL. 239 

Not of these origins and theories, 
But of the present evils, which I take 
For calm necessities, to be endured 
By patient sages — you 

CYRIL 

For devil's work 
To be annihilated by God's men ! 
Ah — did you see it pass ? 

MARKHAM 

What passed ? You are pale. 

CYRIL 

That dismal, desperate, unholy thing 
Which was a child and should be now a man, 
One of your 'calm necessities.' 

MARKHAM 

A man? 
No more ? I deemed you watched along the street 
Some drifting wreck of woman. 

CYRIL 

Always women ! 
There is some deep unsoundness in the Time 



240 TRIAL. part ii. 

When it stares ever at the sins of women 
And lets its men alone. Or, by your leave, 
What kind of God were He that should be served 
Only by women, and whose laws were made 
Merely for girls to keep ? Have done with this, 
And let a man concern himself with men. 
We are the poison — we who are the springs — 
Lords of the heavenly heritage we waste, 
False to high charges, deaf to glorious notes 
Which ring around us as we walk. For us 
Build refuges, and sanctify retreats 
And open daily churches ! We were meant 
To be as tender, temperate, pure, devout, 
As the most cloistered maiden upon earth • 
We have our strength for this, to conquer evil. 
You hold with me — shall we go down at once 
And track this monster ? 

MARK HAM 

If in such a quest 
Your energies are spent, I marvel not 
I found you sorrowful. Tis frenzy, Cyril ! 
Die if you will in watching by the sick 
While the pulse quivers and the slow eyes move, 



scene i. TRIAL. 241 

But let the dead be buried out of sight, 

You cannot raise them. When you have done all, 

When your bright years, and all the happy gifts 

That might have made you famous, and the hopes 

(Wings, till you crushed them), and the high pursuits 

Which beautified your time, and the fine hues 

Which your unshackled and deliberate hand 

Might lay and touch and soften, till you made 

A finished picture, all are sacrificed, 

And dreary toil among earth's basest things 

Possesses and degrades you — is there fruit ? 

How many hard hearts melted can you show 

For your own broken ? Cyril, is there one ? 

CYRIL 

Man, am I Christ that I should change men's hearts ? 

I have a work to do. You talk to me 

Like my temptations. Ere you came, I strove 

With some such thought ; it does not plague me now, 

I am afire for work, There is a haunt 

Down yonder where the worst and wildest souls 

(And sometimes toe the saddest) congregate ; 

There oft I gc in twilight and encounter 

Strange moments, Here and there I sow a word, 

R 



242 TRIAL. PART II. 

An alms, a prayer — what do I know of fruit ? 

That shall be garnered when the harvest comes ; 

But I may save a soul by speaking there, 

Or I might lose a soul by leaving it, 

Or lastly I am merely at my post 

And do this business on my own account. 

Will you come with me ? 

MARKHAM 

Aye, to study life 
In a new aspect. 

\They go down into the Street. 

CYRIL 

Is it not wonderful 
To see that gentle glory in the sky 
Behind the houses ? Lo, how black they look, 
Knowing how foul and mean a world they hide 
From the still splendours of eternity ! 
Yet is the twilight fairness spread for them, 
With all its tints profuse and delicate, 
As for the mountains and the royal woods 
W T hich have a right to it. Behold the Spire, 
It is not black, it enters into light 



scene I. TRIAL. 243 

And is transfused — see where the river makes 

A second firmament — God still has witness 

In man's aspiring and in earth's repose 

Despite all evil. [A Woman stops Cyril. 

woman 
O sir, will you come 
To see my husband? It is soon to ask, 
But since the morning he has cried for you, 
And still he mutters to himself the words 
You spoke, and seems to sort them in his thoughts, . 
Trying to note them all. He will not sleep 
Till he has seen your face. 

CYRIL 

Well, he shall see it, 
I'll give him that small comfort. Say to him 
He may expect me in an hour. 

WOMAN 

I know 
I shall be dearly welcome for that word. [Exit. % 

[A yowig Girl passes. 

CYRIL 

Too late i' the streets, my child — what is your errand ? 



244 TRIAL. part II. 

GIRL {shyly) 
My father sent me to buy bread. 

CYRIL 

Go home 
And say I sent you. I will bring the bread 
As I come back. Good-night. [Exit Girl. 

cyril (lays his hand on a Bofs shoulder) 

Ah, runaway, 
I have you. Stand and answer. Nay, you shall ! 
Why have you fled from school ? What — not a word ? 
I'll tell you then— unless you are ashamed 
To hear yourself explained. 

BOY 

Please sir 



CYRIL 

How meek 
You are to me ! We have been friends, but now 
I'll not be friends with you till you are meek 
In the right place. Come, you shall do your duty ; 
Tis but a coward's part to run away 
Because you heard some talk about your faults. 



scene i. TRIAL. 245 

BOY 
Sir, sir, it was not that. 

CYRIL 

Well, I believe 
'Twas nothing. Breakfast at my house to-morrow 
And tell me all. 

BOY 

I'll come, sir. 

CYRIL 

So 
Good-night, and grow more wise. [Exit Boy. 

MARKHAM 

Are these your sheep ? 

CYRIL 

O, very harmless lambs. If these were all 

I might be gathering daisies all the day. 

Look here ! 

[They stop and look in at the window of a house. 
There is afire, and men and women of the lou'est 
description are gathered aroimd it ; others e?iter 
and join the group. Oafhs and foul language are 



246 TRIAL. part 11. 

heard among them. In one corner of the room 
a woman is stooping over a sick child. It lies 
on the floor with a pillow under its head. 

MARKHAM 

Why, there's our ruffian ! I profess 
In fitting company ! That downward man, 
With all the deadly sins upon his face, 
I should not like to meet i' the dark. There's one 
With a most feeble voiceless countenance, 
Merely an empty vessel, to be filled 
With poison if you please — and there a woman 
Brazen, hard-eyed, incredible — and here 
One like a beast, cunning and ravenous- 
One spiritless and haggard as a corpse. 
Fie, what a group ! Now, if I thought as you 
That these are rushing to a certain doom 
I could not bear 

cyril {grasping his hand) 

O, not the future, friend ! 
The visible damnation of these souls 
Tears me to pieces ! True, the sleeker sins 
Of our soft equals may appear as black 



scene l TRIAL. 247 

In that strong Light which penetrates and proves, 
(For Sin is viler than its consequence) \ 
But we have knowledge, we have looked on God, 
We choose our path. What can we say of these, 
Who feed on darkness, and embrace contempt, 
And breathe pollution ? Had they any choice ? 
When have they seen the good or heard the true ? 
O ! how should they believe themselves beloved 
Being so forgotten ? If I stand aloof 
These sins are mine ! 

MARKHAM 

You are too passionate. 
The world is full of these uneven lives : 
You did not make them, and you cannot mend ; 
You do your utmost — never man did more — 
Be satisfied ! 

CYRIL 

What, here t 
[They look in silently for a little while. 

CYRIL 

I pray you, note 
In this foul place the sacred light of grief. 



248 TRIAL. part 11. 

Each little movement of the mother-hand 
About the pillow of her dying babe 
Speaks like a poem. We can see from this 
Why God afflicts. There is no heart so dumb 
But by divine compulsion of great woe 
It utters transient music. I, who have 
My conversation in the griefs of men, 
Will take this for my passport. 

[They enter, and Cyril goes up to the sick child. 

The men stare, and stop for a moment in their 

talk. One speaks with another. 

MAN 

Who is here ? 

ANOTHER MAN 

O, the mad parson. Let him be. He'll go 

When he has preached a little. 

[They resume their uproar. Cyril lifts the child 
tenderly in his arms. The mother, who has been 
busy about it in a helpless bewildered way, 
looks up. \ 

cyril (gently) 

He is restless — 
There — he seems easier now. 



scene i. TRIAL. 249 

WOMAN 

My pretty boy ! 
Who says that he must die ? O he's too young — 
He has not even learnt to stand alone — 
He cannot die yet. And I love him so 
God would not have the heart to take him from me. 
See — he grows white. Ah, hold him ! If he dies 
I'm sure there's nothing good that rules the world. 
What has he done? What anger has he caused? 
He has not sinned ; I and his father sinned 
Who have not even a finger-ache. Look now, 
He lies quite still — the cruel savage pain 
Hurts him no more — his head is on your breast 
So quietly, I cannot hear him breathe, 
(But you can) — you have children of your own 
Who teach you mother- skill. I wish they did not 
Shout so loud there by the fire. I want to hear 
The pleading murmur of his baby-breath, 
But their noise drowns it. You must hear it, sir, 
Having his heart so close against your own. 
Is he not sweet ? No, do not give him to me ; 
I do not want to have him in my arms \ 
If I should feel him motionless and cold, 
Though it is only sleep (I know he sleeps), 



250 TRIAL. part 11. 

I am so foolish — do not laugh at me — 
I should cry out for fear it might be death, 
Which is impossible. O help me, help me, 
And keep him for me ! 

CYRIL 

God shall keep him for you 
Better than I, poor mother. 

ONE OF THE MEN 

What's the noise ? 

ANOTHER 

Now, parson, what's the matter with the child ? 

\The Woman utters a loud scream. One of the 
other women goes to her a?id begins caressing her. 
Cyril comes forward with the child still in his 
arms. 

mark HAM 
What drives you to them with such eyes of fire ? 

CYRIL 

Let me alone ! I drive against their hearts. 

[He stands among them. 
The child is dead. Brothers, the child is born ! 



scene i. TRIAL. 251 

Look on the beauty of this sleep ! Come near — 

This tender pureness is not terrible ; 

See the -shut eyes which can shed no more tears, 

What do they now behold ? Touch the soft lips 

Through which no sound of sorrow or of sin 

Shall ever pass — be not afraid to touch them, 

They cannot be denied. O, what repose 

Dwells with this everlasting Innocence ! 

Can this fair thing be Death ? Look on each other, 

From this face look to those — do you believe 

You look from Death to Life ? If it be so 

Who would not choose this calm pathetic triumph 

Instead of that dark struggle ? Little child, 

If you had lived you would have looked like these, 

Having to live among them ! Twenty years, 

A time to ripen, what would you have been ? 

Familiar with all evil and no shame, 

Hardened by trouble, enervate with sin, 

Scarred with a thousand traces of despair, 

With just a wordless murmur at your heart 

Revealing that there was a far-off time 

When you looked — thus ! O brothers, think of it ! 

You have made life, God's greatest gift, a thing 

So hideous, that the mother for her child, 



252 TRIAL. part 11. 

Praying her best prayer for her dearest soul, 
Could find no better cry to lift to God 
Than this, ' O snatch him from it ! ' You yourselves 
Know what you are — take but this one to-day 
Out of your lives, and think its minutes through, 
And turn to this pure face, and say with me 
Praise God, for He hath slain another babe ! 

[There is a sound of tears in the room. Cyril 
gives the child to the Woman, and comes into the 
midst of the me?i with outstretched arms. 
Stand still, and let me talk to you of Christ ! 



scene i. LOVE. 253 



PART III.— LOVE. 

Scene I. — At Bertha's House. 
Cyril — Bertha. 

BERTHA Sings, 

Film after film the Distance lies 

Away from our pursuing eyes, 

Till, having sweetly pondered through 
Each lovely change of light and hue, 
They rest upon the final blue. 

Fold after fold the bud receives 
Summer's soft fire among its leaves ; 
The message reaches one by one, 
They thrill, they heave with life begun- 
The Rose lies open to the sun ! 

So pierces Life, while hour by hour, 
The slow heart opens like a flower, 
So spreads the long expanse of Love 
For eyes which lingering as they move 
Pause not until they pass above. 



254 LOVE. part in. 

CYRIL 

Was that the song ? 

BERTHA 

Do you forget so soon ? 
I sang it when I saw you first, and you 
So listened with the silence of your eyes 
That I sang all for you. But now I find 
You were afar, pursuing some swift thought, 
And my poor music only fanned your ears, 
Passing your busy heart. 

CYRIL 

You sang for me ? 
Through all the strain I only heard yourself 
Sweeter than music's soul. I do not know 
One note — I know the voice. Sung by another 
It is another song. 

BERTHA 

Seems it so now ? 
Alas, I fear the dew has died from it, 
The gem is but a grass- flower ! Seems it so ? 

CYRIL 

Look at me — are you Bertha ? 



scene i. LOVE. 255 

BERTHA 

Look at me ! 

CYRIL 

I cannot see the half of all I love, 
Pazed by its presence — I must glance aside 
Like men who watch for mighty stars — or wait 
Till some reflecting calm of memory 
Makes contemplation possible. 

BERTHA 

You mock me 
With such sonorous love, not like yourself. 
I hate professions, poor as showers of gold 
Flung in the lap are poor to her who waits 
For one soft touch from one beloved hand. 

CYRIL 

Dear, when you doubt, must I not needs profess ? 

We play with our untroubled certainties 

Like children who, familiar with their tasks, 

Pretend a coaxing ignorance, to catch 

The smile of wonder when the words ring out. 



256 LOVE. part in. 

BERTHA 

Am I so certain ? 

CYRIL 

You have vexed me now. 

BERTHA 

Nay, but that daily miracle, your love, 

Amazes me. If I could find a cause 

Why you should choose me, I were more content ; 

But in me there is only simpleness, 

And such sufficiency of tender thoughts 

As make me happy when I look at you 

But give you nothing. When I see you mount 

Like a swift angel up the steeps of fire, 

My heart longs after you to call you back, 

Fearing the pain ; I know that pain is good, 

And you are strong, and God is pitiful, 

Grieved with our griefs ; and yet I shrink for you 

(I fancy I could bear it for myself) ; 

And though I pray to cling about your feet, 

Going up with you so, healing your wounds 

With my weak hands, or by some special grace 

Taking sometimes a hurt instead of you, 

Yet is this common Earth so sweet to me 

That if a flower dies I am sorrowful, 

And all sea-moonlights, or processioned clouds, 



scene i. LOVE. 257 

Or flash and shadow blown about the grass, 

Or depths of summer in the nested woods, 

Motions of birds, and sounds of shaken leaves, 

Perplex and satisfy me with delight \ 

Therefore I fear I am not made for you, 

Not an helpmeet for you — it breaks my heart 

To think that you will see me as I am 

And turn away ; yet, if I bring you down, 

Or merely do not help you as I might, 

As a wife should, as I should were I fit 

To be your wife, then am I bound to wish 

That you should drop me from you as you mount ; 

Then I am bound — O ! tell me, am I bound 

To take the task upon my faulty self 

Who never should have held you, and set free 

Your soul, to seek its throne ? 

CYRIL 

Have you confessed ? 
Are these your sins ? O, when I think of heaven 
I see you with a lily in your hand 
Walk softly through the gate, with robes unstained 
And all the morning calmness on your cheeks. 
I would not wound your tender soul with praise ; 
Hear only this, that when I yield you are 



258 LOVE. PART III. 

My strength, and when I conquer, my delight ; 

Hope when I faint, refreshment when I fail, 

Day to my doubting footsteps everywhere, 

Whether I die or live, my truest life. 

Beside me that sweet current of your thoughts 

Flows like a river by a toilsome road 

Where weary feet and dust-bewildered eyes 

Rest and are comforted. Were it not too bold 

I'd say your soul was made for serving mine 

Apt for its utmost needs ; yet I were blest 

If I could spend myself in serving you 

Who need me not, for even these gracious tears 

Which your quick conscience trembles at, are strength 

To him who feels ' what matter if I die ? 

There is no pain since Bertha weeps for me.' 

BERTHA 

Unkind to take your comfort from my tears ! 
Why do you talk of Death? 

CYRIL 

Death is Life's servant ; 
It follows us, close, faithful, vigilant; 
Plucks out, if we receive such ministry, 
At every step some thorn or stain of life ; 



scene i. LOVE. 259 

Takes off the mask of Sin, that we may see 
What 'tis that tempts us ; and with ready breast 
Pillows us when the warfare is complete, 
When we want rest. 

BERTHA 

And parts us. Could we go 
Together to that beautiful new world 
Which we believe in, Death would seem to me 
Like a soft call into some fairer room 
Where we may look at wonders. But it parts us. 
O, Cyril, can you bear it ? 

CYRIL 

Let it pass : 
I know not how we came to such a theme ; 
Press it no further. 

BERTHA 

Why do you clasp me so ? 
Why are you pale ? 

CYRIL 

I cannot tell — a fear : 
I saw Earth gaping darkly at your feet 
For one fierce moment. 



260 LOVE. PART III. 

BERTHA 

'Tis my turn to chide, 
Myself, not you, for stirring such a fear. 

Cyril, how you love me ! I have done 

With doubts which grow from mine unworthiness : 
Your love creates what it would find in me ; 

1 have no power to lag behind your trust. 
If you so fear to lose me, I am sure 

I must be worthy keeping. I have heard 

A maze of music from three notes unwound 

And ever winding back to these three notes 

Telling it's heart out so ; even so I harp 

On my sweet secret, ' Cyril, how you love me ! ' 

And ' how you love me, Cyril ! ' nothing else 

Till all my life grows music and invests* 

With all its harmonies that central phrase. 

I wonder [She stops suddenly. 

CYRIL 

What? 

BERTHA 

It is such foolishness 
I am ashamed to say it ; but I wonder 



SCENE I. LOVE. 261 

If when I walk abroad all men perceive 
That glory which began upon my face 
When you first said you loved me. 

CYRIL 

Never doubt 
Tis for that cause they turn to look at you 
More than at women whom I do not love. 
See, while we trifle, Time leaps on. At four 
My mother comes. \Holds up his watch. 

BERTHA 

'Tis kind. Alas, I wish 
I had such state and practice in the world 
As she desires ! If she but pardons me 
For stealing this her jewel from the hand 
She meant it for, I'll so entangle her 
With harmless guile that she must yield at last 
And love me ere I let her go, 

CYRIL 

She comes 
To love you. True, she questioned you, unseen ; 
She had a scheme which flourished like a flower, 
And when she found it rootless, yours the blame ; 



262 LOVE, PART III. 

But, knowing that my heart is fixed, she comes 
To grace, not judge you — though to such as you 
The stricter judgment brings the surer grace. 
You must not fear her. 

BERTHA 

Nay, I fear her not. 
How should I fear your mother ? She must be 
Tender and wise, with thoughts which cannot wound 
A safe heart lying quietly in your hand. 

CYRIL 

That's bravely said. Yet dearest, yet, I see 
An unfamiliar crimson in your cheek 
Like a white rose at sunset ; do not wrong 
Yourself or her by one uneasy pang ; 
Make your whole heart a welcome. 

BERTHA 

So it is ; 
I fear myself a little, but not her ; 
Whence these unwarrantable blushes come 
I know not. Would it were to-morrow ! 

CYRIL 

Why 
Hurry the gentle hours that are so fair ? 



LOVE. 263 



I would keep each for ever, did I not see 
The smile of the new-comer. 



BERTHA 

Tis my way 
To think remembrance sweeter than possession. 
When you are by (nay look not grave, I am blest 
When you are by), yet is my heart so full 
That if I catch a pause between the beats, 
I find I long for evening, for a time 
To ponder all the meanings of your face, 
And tell myself the tender things you looked, 
And count the precious words which came like shocks 
So that I could not hear how kind they were. 
I tremble in the strong grasp of ' To-day,' 
Like a caught bird, which sings not in your hand, 
But if you loose it, from the nearest tree 
Pours dow r n its vigorous gratitude. 



CYRIL 

A plea 
So lovely, that it only seems to say, 
' Take me again ! I am here 1 ' 



264 ' LOVE. PART III. 

BERTHA 

Take me again 
And still again, for if you take me not, 
Dumb, desolate, and free, I can but die 
Without a home. 

CYRIL 

My bird, my child, my darling ! 
Why do you put such pathos in your face. 
Making a mist of unaccustomed tears 
Around the splendour of my happiness ? 
You say the very words I long to hear, 
You touch me with the glory of your hand, 
But those appealing eyes go through my heart, 
Which shivers like a harpstring, fit to break 
Ere it can answer. 

BERTHA 

Well, I am to blame ; 
Let me not move you — talk of something else ; 
It is my birthday and we should be gay. 
See, your ring glitters ! 

CYRIL 

For your birthday, love, 



scene ii. LOVE. 265 

The sweetest gift is that new daughterhood 
Which now begins. 

BERTHA 

I do desire it much. 



Scene II. 
Enter Markham. 

CYRIL 

Come in good time ! I have a lady here 
So timid, that two heroes like ourselves 
Are scarce enough to cheer her. 

BERTHA 

Do not say so ; 
I shall be scorned. 

MARKHAM 

No tongue but yours would dare 
To couple scorn with your sweet name. For that, 
I hold you brave — and for the rest, your fears 
Shall fly before a woman's gentle face 



266 LOVE. part in. 

Ere you can show them. Two are on the way 
To give you courage. 

BERTHA 

Two? 

MARKHAM 

With your new mother 
(Such you shall find her) a new sister comes, 
Eager to win you — nay, there's no escape, 
At the first summons you must strike your flag 
And take your fetters meekly. 

CYRIL 

You bring news. 
Comes Blanche to grace the meeting? That is kind. 

markham {looking at Bertha) 
Shall I be pardoned if I tell you bluntly 
I never saw you look so well ? 

cyril {looking at her) 
I think 
I like the lilies better. 



scene ii. LOVE. 267 

MARKHAM 

You can choose. 
And thus he gives you valour ! 

BERTHA 

O, believe 
I do but feel such reasonable doubt 
As must beset me, if I match myself 
Against the love that chose me. I am forced 
To speak of what I should not. Were I such 
As in their kindly judgment I shall seem, 
I might be surer, but I could not be 
Happier than now. 

MARKHAM 

Be only as you are, 
You cannot mend it. Shall I make you now 
Confess a fault ? You scorned my memory 
A week ago, and now I wish you joy 
On your remembered birthday ! 

BERTHA 

Are you sure 
You did not hear us talking as you came ? 



268 LOVE. part in. 

MARKHAM 

Sceptic, behold the proof ! [Gives her a bracelet. 

BERTHA 

A miracle 
Which I must kneel to. Cyril, look at it ! 
I cannot find a language for my thanks. 

MARKHAM (to CYRIL) 

Will you not clasp it ? 

[Cyril clasps the bracelet on Bertha's arm. 

BERTHA 

? Tis the perfect size. 

MARKHAM 

Do not sit here ; the shadow touches you. 
See, Cyril, when they cross the threshold there 
We'll set her like a picture, jour a gauche, 
And tell them where to stand. 

BERTHA 

You make me laugh. 



SCENE III. 



LOVE. 269 



CYRIL 

That is his purpose. I commend him for it. 

BERTHA 

Defend me from these mockers ! Two at once ! 



Scene III. 

Enter Mrs. Vere and Lady Blanche. 

Mrs. Vere — Lady Blanche — Cyril — Markham- 
Bertha. 

cyril (advances eagerly) 
See, mother, we are ready ! Not a word — 
But take her, for she will not come to me 
Unless you give her. 

\Heputs Bertha's hand into Mrs. Vere's. 

mrs. vere (ceremoniously) 

I am glad to see you, 
And sorry that your father keeps his room. 



270 LOVE. PART II 

BERTHA 

It grieves him that he cannot welcome you. 

MRS. VERE 

You will not let us miss him. Here 1 you have 

A gracious landscape, and a kindly hearth — 

Two things to make home charming. It is strange 

To come upon this pretty calm, so near 

The roar of our confusion. I have heard 

You lived here always ? 

BERTHA 

I have yet to learn 
If there are other places in the world 
As tender to my simpleness as this. 

LADY BLANCHE 

I'll help to teach you. Must I name myself 
Or do you know me ? Cyril, is it right 
To make me seem so bold ? 

CYRIL 

You blame me well. 
I have lost all my manners, in the deep 



scene in. LOVE. 271 

Of this long-looked-for joy. If one by one 

We reach the things we long for, there is time 

To ponder them like reasons and be calm. 

The man who sees one picture in a day 

Takes it to bed among his gentlest thoughts 

And in the night beholds it. and at morn 

Beholds it still, and grows familiar with it, 

Till, seen again, it greets him like a friend 

Telling no news, but coming to his heart 

With itself only. So my separate loves 

Ruled me at leisure \ but I go perplexed 

About this gallery, scarce discerning yet 

"Which bright appeal should have its answer first, 

Passing where I should pause, at every step 

Turning so soothe some beautiful reproach 

With tardy homage. [He takes Blanche's hand. 

MARKHAM 

Your one picture has 
Companions, but no rivals. 

mrs. vere (perceiving him) 
Are you here 
To penetrate this poesy with facts ? 



272 LOVE. PART III. 

O keep your friendly office ! Cyril needs 
A rein — we know it — ever scaling heights 
And scorning valleys ; covering half the world 
For each neglected mile of beaten road. 

CYRIL 

Aye, mother, is my daily waste so great ? 
Yet are there rocks about my daily path 
Which need a stronger blast than poesy ! 

MRS. VERE 

You do not move them ; there's the sorrow, Cyril ; 
Your cause lies crushed among them, even the cause 
For which you flung away your noble life, 
While you go harvesting the fruitless winds 
Or triumphing over clouds. 

CYRIL 

Not from the dust 
Come the great forces which compel the world ; 
We build them out of fire and air, because 
He that would rule earth must first rise above it. 
On our invisible banners stand the words 
6 Life risen, and Life hidden/ 



scene in. LOVE. 273 

MRS. VERE 

Mystical 
As ever ! Now, I wish a Seer would say 
Why some draw changes from the years, and some 
Carry their childhood always. He was yet 

\to Bertha 
A slender sprite of ten, faced like a girl, 
When, if you crossed him with a doubt, he straight 
Would toss and tangle you in parables 
Till you grew faint. 

bertha (to Cyril) 
Were you so wise a child ? 

CYRIL 

A pedant in that pre-historic age 
Before the twilight of my beard. 

MARKHAM 

And still 
A pedant (so your mother says), complete 
With all primaeval dragon-slaying arms, 
Though now there be no dragons (and what tongue 
Shall certify us of the time and place 

T 



274 LOVE. part in. 

When as the dogma struck, the dragon died ?) 
No matter ! You can hurl your dogmas still 
And hope for living dragons. Is it not strange 

[to Mrs. Vere 
That all his growing glory of young days, 
Which we stood by to watch, is rounded thus ; 
As if a great tree, breaking out in spring 
With blossom-torrents, there should stay and cease, 
And, in the harvest, like a giant flower 
Wither unfruited? 

MRS. VERE 

If you speak of Cyril, 
I should know more than you. I find no cause 
To mourn such fruitless promise in his life. 
I think you have not seen his work. 

MARKHAM 

Forgive me ! 
I meant to make you bless him unaware. 

CYRIL 

Mother and friend, I must beseech you, choose 
A livelier theme. I am no more a child 
Called to reluctant stand when strangers come 



scene in. LOVE. 275 

To test my growth, or show how like I am 

To some half-uncle in another world 

Whose shadow never touched my thoughts. I hate 

To criticise my own biography, 

Searching myself with hesitating eyes 

To find which flaws are only in the glass, 

Which in the face it mirrors. Let me rest 

Like a dull book. If we should talk of Blanche 

The topic has some grace. 

LADY BLANCHE 

111 not allow it. 
I could not trust my tender qualities 
To such free handling. 

MRS. VERE 

We seem all adrift. 
Shall we have music? (To Bertha.) I believe you 
sing? 

bertha (looks at Cyril) 
I must learn better ere I sing for you ; 
Must I not, Cyril ? 

t 2 



276 LOVE, part in. 

MRS. VERE 

Nay, I press you not : 
Refuse me if you will. Dear Blanche, I think 
Your voice is always ready. Let it flow 
To smooth this ruffle of uneasy talk ! 

bertha (distressed) 
I did not mean 

LADY BLANCHE {kindly) 

I will but lead the way, 
Use having made me bolder. (Aside to Mrs. Vere) 

Oh ! be kind ; 
See how the tide of blushes ebbs and flows 
At every word you speak ! I am sorry for her. 

mrs. vere {aside to Lady Blanche) 
For him ! For him ! Why picked he from the ground 
This shred of homespun ? Links of virgin gold 
Were ready for his neck. 

lady blanche {aside) 
For shame ! 



scene in. LOVE. 277 

MRS. VERE 

Enough* 
I will constrain myself to softer ways. 

bertha (aside to Cyril) 
How childish was I not to sing at once ! 
How shall I please her now ? 

CYRIL 

Sing afterwards ! 
Be brave — this voice is nothing beside yours. 
A dancer's paces on the polished floor 
To the airy poise and passage of a nymph 
Across the woods ! 

BERTHA 

You cannot make me think so, 
But you may think so always if you will. 

mrs. vere (aside) 
Mark her appeals ! That way she won him, Blanche ! 
O to divide this knot ! 

LADY BLANCHE 

I will not hear you. 



278 LOVE. 



She preludes and sings. 

What have you done with my flower, my flower, 

That lay on your heart so gay, so sweet ? 
I wore it there for half an hour 
Then I cast it under my feet. 
Fade, flower ! Fade you may, 
Now, for you have bloomed your day ! 

What have you done with my ring, my ring, 
That was on your hand, so close, so true ? 
It clung too close, the weary thing ! 
I have dropped it into the dew. 
Break, ring ! Break you may, 
Now, for you are cast away ! 

What have you done with my heart, my heart, 

That lay in your hand so safe, so still ? 
I let it fall in field or mart ; 
You can look for it if you will ! 
Break, heart ! Break, you must, 
Now, for you are in the dust ! 



CYRIL 

A bitter song. Have you dropped many hearts 
To whisper all their wrongs about your feet ? 
You should tread lightly. 



scene in. LOVE. 279 

LADY BLANCHE 

Tis a woman's song. 
This kind of crime is only masculine. 

CYRIL 

Indeed ! 

mrs. vere (to Bertha) 
You do not speak ? 

MARKHAM 

Her face speaks for her, 
Being full of praise and wonder. 

BERTHA 

I could listen 
Hours into minutes. Will you sing again ? 

LADY BLANCHE 

No, no — your turn is come. 

MARKHAM (to BERTHA) 

Then let me choose ; 
Do me so much of honour. Sing for me, 
That — nay, I cannot name it — which you sang 



280 LOVE. PART III. 

In the last twilight, and which seemed to us 

A murmur from one mourning in the woods 

Ere she goes home ; when the lamp came, we looked 

To see who had not wept. 

BERTHA 

That little ballad ? 
Is't not too sad ? Well — bear with it, and me ! 

BERTHA sings. 

* They came together to see me/ 

The old woman said, and sighed, 
4 One was tall, and the other small ; 
' I think the little one died.' 
She had a trick of sighing, 

And she knew not what she said, 
But O ! how could she say to me, 
1 Is the little one dead ? ' 

For strange to me seems any doubt 

Of that which did betide, 
Because the light of my life went out 

When the little one died ; 
And every leaf on every tree 

Since then to me has said, 
And will for ever say to me, 
* Is the little one dead ? ' 



SCENE III. LOVE, 281 

And everywhere I see the room, 

And all the weeping eyes ; 
And I hear the tender terrible words 

While the little one dies ; 
And everywhere I feel the blank 

With empty arms outspread, 
Till I would give all things that live 

For my little one, dead. 

And if I hear that one is sick 

I shrink and turn aside ; 
Ever I fear that Death is near 

Because my little one died. 
And if I hear that one is well 

I lift a cruel cry, 
Why, oh why, should any be well 

And just my little one die ? 

And through my heart the word goes down, 

There ever to abide, 
Why, oh why, am I alive 

Since my little one died ? 
While, with her trick of sighing, 

Again the old woman said, 
1 One was tall, and the other small — 

Is the little one dead ? ' 

MRS. VERE 

Sweet but untrained ! 

LADY BLANCHE 

A voice like a wild rose. 



282 LOVE. PART III. 

CYRIL 

! what a pang of silence follows it ! 

Yet, Markham, yet, I cannot praise your taste. 

Find you a charm in phantasies of pain 

To soothe away the substance of your griefs ? 

1 ever held that Art should stand by Truth 
To draw the secret beauty out of it 

And teach us all we miss ; providing us 
With havens and reposes, whence, refreshed, 
We go back to our toil. Tears are not Rest ; 
I grudge them to my visions, being sure 
My facts will need them. 

MARKHAM 

Reason goes with you ; 
But I, who shudder at the depths, can play 
Among the shallows. 

MRS. VERE 

Time demands us now. 
Come Blanche. (To Bertha.) And you must visit me 

at home ? 
Have you a day to spare, or shall we fix 
When we meet next? 



scene in. LOVE. 283 

CYRIL 

Nay, mother, you forget 
Her days are not as yours — she grows i' the shade. 

MRS. VERE 

I should be son*}' if my summons crossed 
A fairer project. 

BERTHA 

Tis not possible. 
I am your servant, if you send for me ; 
Your child, if you will love me ! Let me hope 
It shall be so 

MRS. VERE 

I never had the skill 
To set my pretty sentiments to words ; 
I know it is a fault. Shall we say Tuesday? 
Nay, thank me not, I am content with 'yes.' 

{Gives her hand to Bertha, 
'Tis settled. Cyril, do you come with us ? 

CYRIL 

Aye, to the door. 



28 4 10 VE. 



PART III. 



MRS. VERE 

No further ? So you teach me 
My future ere it comes. [Exit Mrs. Vere. 

LADY BLANCHE 

She is not well ; [To Bertha. 
Think nothing of her haste. But you and I 
Will learn our sistership at leisure. Take 
This kiss as warrant. 

[Kisses her, and exit, following Mrs. Vere. 

cyril {to Bertha) 

Look not sad, my love. 

BERTHA 

You did not like my song. 

CYRIL 

Child, is that all ? [Exit Markham. 
That wound finds speedy healing. All the while 
It seemed as if you sang about yourself, 
And that soft wailing for the little one 
Came back and back again to trouble me 



scene in. LOVE. 285 

Like some light haunting pain, the seed of death, 
Till, angry with unreasonable fears, 
I blamed the strain. But, for the rest, it was 
Too precious, like a picture in the street 
Which we would cover from the wind and dust, 
Or chill of eyes neglectful. Are you healed ? 

BERTHA 

Aye, with a word. 

Re-mter Markham. 

MARKHAM 

Now thank me, for I did 
Your office nobly and devised excuses 
(At least a dozen) w r hy you did it not. 

BERTHA 

Alas, I fear I am to blame for this ! 

MARKHAM 

You w T ere the sole excuse I did not name. 

How r have you fared ? Come, tell us, will you call 

Your terrors treason ? 



286 LOVE, part in. 

CYRIL 

Do not press her now ; 
She is weary. 

MARKHAM 

Ah, you should be satisfied. 
The lilies that you missed are here again. 

BERTHA 

Am I so pale ? 

CYRIL 

White as a dream of angels. 

BERTHA 

I'll rest. 

CYRIL 

And so farewell. At evening time 
I will return. [Exeunt Cyril and Markham. 

bertha {alone) 
O yes, at evening time ! 
But never since I knew of waning lights 
Have I so longed for evening. When it comes, 
I shall be happy. What a thankless soul ! 
Now will I set my joy before my soul 



scene in. LOVE. 2S7 

And so compel it into happiness. 

First then, he loves me. Next — but no, there is 

Xo second to that first, it covers all. 

Ill think of it before I fall asleep 

That all my dreams maybe astir with hope 

Of bright awakening. If his mother grieves 

That he should look so low, I blame her not : 

Yet am I sure of something in myself 

Which answers and aspires to what he is - 

And if on that sweet upward slope of Time 

At which I gaze, she sees me by his side 

Giving such comfort as a woman may 

To him who loves her, she will pardon me. 

But shall I walk beside him ? I am tired 

And all the Future seems too difficult ; 

Only at evening-time, when there is light 

Shall the way soften and the distance shine. 

Goodnight, my love. Come back at evening time. 

[She lies down on a couch a?id sleeps. A pause. 

Re-enter Cyril 

CYRIL 

Now steadfast Day, before she meets with Night, 
Stands still and tries her strength \ not soon to yield 



288 LOVE, part in. 

Her fair defences, but, with many a charge 

Into the shadows, many a shining pause 

On cloud, or mountain vantage, where she waves 

Banners of gold, and ranges scarlet plumes 

For last encounters, beaten inch by inch 

With drifts of gloom and passages of wind 

And mustering of dark multitudes, at last 

To fall like a good soldier at his post 

Overmastered, but not conquered. I am come 

Before my time. The dumb sting of a thought 

Drives me, though I despise it. I must see 

That face which is my only face on earth 

Smile once, and scatter all my haunting sighs. 

Why did she sing that song ? \He perceives Bertha*,, 

O, here she sleeps, 
As tranquil and as easily disturbed 
As light on summer water. Shall I touch her 
To her sweet life again ? I am a coward 
Before this semblance. When, upon my knees, 
Daily I offer her to God, my heart 
Condemns itself for falsehood, knowing not 
If it could give her, praying that its prayer 
Turn not to sin. How motionless she lies ! 
That curve of golden hair across her neck 



scene in. LOVE. 289 

Is still as sculpture, and the white hand drops 
Like a forgotten lily, when no breeze 
Troubles the lawn. Her face is very calm ; 
She looks at something blessed in her dreams 
And those shut eyes are satisfied. I think 
I could not wake her, if the lightest care, 
The faint first whisper of uneasy thought, 
Awaited her — one shred of passing mist 
Shows like a stain upon a cloudless sky * 
But out of this contentment of her sleep 
I rouse her into fuller joy. So thus ! 

[Kisses her forehead and starts back. 
Ah ! That was cold. Awake, my love ! I know 
The music of my name upon your lips 
Will sound in a moment. You are pausing now 
Before you smile. Then, for the first time, here ! 

[Kisses her lips. 
Ice to me ! Where's your hand? Cold too — no 

grasp 
In these slack fingers ! What has fallen upon me ? 
Is not the distance full of cries ? I think 
They call me mad. Not death — madness — not 

death ; 
No one said death — Not this death ! Ah, I knew it ! 

u 



290 LOVE. PART III. 

Help, help! she cannot be so far from life 
Without farewell ! There is time yet — my Bertha, 
Do you jest with me? Open your sweet eyes ! 
O, Bertha, Bertha ! [Throws himself on the body. 

Enter Markham. 

MARKHAM 

What a cry was there ! 

\He starts back appalled. 
O, Cyril, Cyril, has your God done this ! 

cyrtl {rising from the body) 
I think I have not seen your face before, 
But you seem pitiful. Look here for me — 
You weep and cannot ! I am blind myself. 
Will no man give a name to this cold sleep ? 
I want the truth. Friend, is there hope ? 

MARKHAM 

No, No ! 
Alas, she's dead ! 

CYRIL 

You must not touch her hand, 
It's mine. And she — not she — but all I have 



scene in. LOVE. 291 

Instead of her — friend, for I know you now, 
I was to-day the richest soul on earth — 
You saw me so. What have I now — my world 
Narrowed to this ! An empty garment, friend. 
I cannot, as some do, look calmly on it 
And ask you if it is not beautiful ; 
I cannot cast it from me — there it lies — 
My darkness and my poverty lie there — 
What shall I do? 

MARKHAM 

It is too soon for comfort. 

cyril (to the body) 
Dear, did you know we were to part so soon ? 
How could you bear me from you? You have 

robbed me 
Of my last memories ! Had I but been here, 
O had mine eyes but watched this cruel sleep, 
They had not suffered it to slip to death ! 

MARKHAM 

Time lives, while all things die, and lives to soothe. 

u 2 



292 LOVE. PART III. 

CYRIL 

lime lives, and I must live again in Time ; 
The certainty is on me that I must ; 
I am afraid of it. There are the streets 
Where I shall walk, the men that I shall meet, 
The things that I shall do ; but in the midst, 
Or in the hollow times that look like rest, 
Suddenly I shall feel her in my arms > 
And all I see or hear shall fall from me 
Like cold mists from a climber, leaving me 
Alone upon the summit of my grief ; 
Then most alone, when T am most with her 
Who was the sweetest company on earth. 
O for an endless cloister ! 

MARKHAM 

If my pity — 
Nay, if my wrath could aid you, they are yours. 
Why are we flung so helpless into life 
To suffer what we would not ? Either God 
Rules not at all, and then He is not God, 
Or if He rule the world He is not good 
Because He makes it vile and miserable, 
Vile to the vile, and dreadful to the good 
Who serve Him to no purpose ! 



scene in. LOVE. 293 

CYRIL 

O, be dumb ! 
Her angel's here already and is grieved. 
Henceforth I go to meet that touch of God 
Which we call death \ and when, upon my way 
I faint, or shrink, or falter among men, 
Suddenly I shall feel her in my arms 
And all mean thoughts shall drop away from me, 
The cloud shall pass, the trouble shall be calm, 
The Future shall possess me (having lost 
All else), till, mantled in that coming light 
Which dwarfs and dims the distances of Earth, 
Crowned with unconscious conquests, which she wins, 
I reach the perfect Presence, where she waits ! 
This, this, is what my God has done for me : 
I'll own it, though I die. 

Enter Mrs. Vere hastily. She falls on Cyril's neck. 

MRS. VERE 

Oh, my dear son ! 
I know your loss is great. 

CYRIL 

Alas, my mother ! 
Yours is still greater. You missed loviug her ! 



294 THIRTY YEARS AFTERWARDS, part iv 



PART IV.— THIRTY YEARS 
AFTERWARDS. 

Scene I. 
Seaford — Markham. 

SEAFORD 

Yes, now I see that old face in the new, 

That strange, specific, personal difference 

Which makes me name you. At first sight you 

seemed 
Vague altogether ; by degrees, the touch 
Of some remembered thought fell softly on me, 
Wakened and held me ; then I found the place, 
And then the family, and now the name ; 
You and no other. Did you light on me 
By chance ? 



scene I. THIRTY YEARS AFTERWARDS. 295 

MARKHAM 

Nay, Seaford, there is slighter change 
In you than me ; I knew you at a glance ; 
Just thus I dreamed you should be, when as boys 
We talked about our future certainties 
Making them what we would. Have you attained 

them? 
Methinks you have — I am sure you must have felt 
The cultivations of a tender home 
To bring you to such smoothness. Are they yours, 
The gentle wife, the pleasant competence, 
The not too numerous brood of little ones 
Making the garden gay, but leaving still 
The study tranquil, gracing not disturbing 
The leisure of your learning 

SEAFORD 

Out upon you ! 
Comes nothing greater from these early visions ? 
Was I so tame i' the morning ? 

MARKHAM 

Better grow 
From soft beginnings, like a gradual flower, 



296 THIRTY YEARS AFTERWARDS, part iv. 

Than like a star flash out to set in blackness 
Nor leave a glimmer on the dismal sky ! 
How have you sped, in truth ? 

SEAFORD 

Well, you shall see, 
If, as I hope, you'll test me. But yourself — 
Not only Time's deliberate restlessness 
Has stamped your face ; I find the mark of toil, 
The scar of conquest — tell me — have you reached 
Your young ambitions ? 

MARKHAM 

I have done a little ; 
Less haply than I dreamed, since my slow fame 
Knocked never at your door. 

SEAFORD 

'Tis my dull ear 
That failed to note it. Was't in Africa 

MARKHAM 

Tush ! never mind. Tell me of all our friends — 
Lives little Fortescue ? 



scene I. THIRTY YEARS AFTERWARDS. 297 

SEAFORD 

Lives ? I should think so ! 
Full twice as much as many a bigger man ; 
He goes about us like the general air, 
Or like an evening gnat, in every place 
Save where we want to catch him. 

MARKHAM 

Mark you now 
How little change there comes in thirty years ! 
Tis said the morrow differs from the day 
For ever ; count by decades, and you find 
There's nothing but foreseen development 
Or irresistible decay. 

SEAFORD 

No, no ! 
Not thirty years — you shall not say so much. 

MARKHAM 

There spoke the happy voyager, who sails 
With ship so placid and with sea so kind 
That the first glimpse of land disheartens him ; 
Still he looks back, and never thinks of those 



298 THIRTY YEARS AFTERWARDS, part iv. 

Who hunger for the greensward and the streams. 
Once more, what news of Grey? 



SEAFORD 

You throw a blank; 
The first. 

MARKHAM 

What, dead ? The youngest of us all, 
And such a gentle heart ! 

SEAFORD 

Even such he was. 
The cruel wires brought home his fatal name 
Two days before a letter, full of laughs, 
Which charged his weeping wife to welcome him. 

MARKHAM 

I could almost weep too to think of it. 

Well — I have left the best name to the last— 

I know he lives, but tell me how he fares ? 



SEAFORD 

Who? 



scene i. THIRTY YEARS AFTERWARDS. 299 

MARKHAM 

Shall I name him ? When we dreamed together 
Of coming days, and built our lives with words 
Like Babels that should break and scatter us, 
Was there not one whose face was to the hills, 
Who chattered not. but climbed, and closed with Day 
Among the shining summits, while we slept? 

SEAFORD 

I cannot guess his name, unless you speak 
Of Cyril 

MARKHAM 

But why drop your voice ? I'm sure 
He lives — you shall not tell me otherwise ; 
What— Cyril? 

SEAFORD 

Nay, be satisfied, he lives. 
There are so many sorts of life, my friend ; 
This air that fans us, holds a mighty scale 
From insect up to eagle, or some say 
Up higher yet, to Angels, which, unseen, 
Walk on its fluent waves and find no place 



300 THIRTY YEARS AFTERWARDS, part iv. 

In our class-namings. Not to speak of these, 
If I should talk to you of Cyril's life 
Twere just as though some chirper in the hedge 
Should gossip about eagles. 

MARKHAM 

Say you so ? 
Hath he outsoared the wings of Speech ? Come, come, 
You tell me fables ! 

SEAFORD 

Sir, I am a man 
In my own compass, knowing right from wrong, 
Familiarly, doing no hurt to any, 
Keeping some general watch upon myself, 
Trusting the Hope that shall make up for all, 
Not aiming high, but not afraid of death, 
And not ashamed of living comfortably ; 
But, for a minute, look you, for a minute 
To see my days beside such days as his 
Sends a pale shudder through my puzzled soul 
As if I were the vilest thing that breathes ; 
That's nonsense — but I feel it. 



scene I. THIRTY YEARS AFTERWARDS. 301 

MARKHAM 

Well, I know 
The world hath dreamers, and they have their place 
In the world's work ; to keep alive the light 
Which others walk by. If he's one of these 

SEAFORD 

O ! spare your ' If — he labours like the sea 

Without a pause—what looks afar like Rest 

Is but the softer toil which moulds and smooths 

After uprooting. He hath made a name; 

The People know him. If a whirlwind drops 

One of these trenchant ' Whys ' which pierce the 

depths 
And reach the shallows, so that lip to lip 
Tosses amazing words, and all the world 
Grows intimate with unsolved mysteries 
And fights for things unknown, and builds its towers 
To guard no vineyard, but a wilderness 
(Our civilised religion hath such broils), 
At such a season, men will ask each other 
' But what said Cyril ? ' and the answer given 
Be more conclusive than a victory \ 



302 THIRTY YEARS AFTERWARDS, part i v. 

In truth, a seed of Peace, which, being watered, 
Becomes a mighty shelter. 

MARKHAM 

You surprise me ! 
I ever deemed his argument too fine 
For common fingers ; silver threads that slip 
Without a knot. 

SEAFORD 

Nay, but the greatest men 
Lay hands on all. They feed us, like the skies, 
With light for rich and poor, unjust and just 
One uses it to build, and one to plant, 
And one to hunt for farthings — still it shines. 

MARKHAM 

Tell me his haunts — I want to meet with him. 
By all you say, this vigorous noon should hold 
Sweet union with its unregretted morn. 
I think I should be welcome. 

SEAFORD 

Doubt it not ; 
To me, who have but talked away my life, 



scene i. THIRTY YEARS AFTERWARDS. 303 

He comes with such profound and gentle eyes 
That I can feel them touch the Thing within, 
And I am sure they find some good in it 
Whereof I knew not. 'Tis a loving heart. 



MARKHAM 

Where can I find him ? 

SEAFORD 

You shall come with me. 
The Congress sits to-day. 

MARKHAM 

Translate your news 
For unfamiliar ears, receiving not 
These new-grown flowers of speech. 

SEAFORD 

Well then, the Congress 
Is — an assemblage 



MARKHAM 

So much I could guess. 



304 THIRTY YEARS AFTERWARDS, part i v. 

SEAFORD 

But hear the end ! We gather and we talk 

Of happened evil and imagined good 

In all the realms of practice and belief, 

Trusting that slow realities of good 

Out of our talk shall spring, and nil our fields 

Till the weeds find no room. 



MARKHAM 

A Parliament 
That makes no laws. Speaks Cyril in the ranks ? 

SEAFORD 

Aye, from the ranks he speaks, and as he speaks 
The leaders change their tactics. Here's the door. 
Shall we go in ? 

MARKHAM 

I follow. 
\They enter the House of Assembly. 



scene II. THIRTY YEARS AFTERWARDS. 305 



Scene II. — Vestibule of the Hall in which the 
Congress is assembled. 

[Great Archway of communication through which 
the Hall is seen with Bishop, Clergy, and Laity 
in full discussion. In the Vestibule, Markham 
a?id Seaford staiid listening. 

first layman 

So, for your patience, thanks. The sum of all 
Is that we stand before our Age like men 
Who in their book-rooms hang a classic map 
And talk of Troy, but, being set to travel, 
Hug their familiar Murray and depart 
More wise than honest. But the time asks truth. 
If they be facts, maintain your boundaries, 
If not, efface them ! Forth, and feel your way 
And teach us more than you have learnt, for each 
Hews his own path, and adds his Article 
To the great ever-growing human creed 
Which was, and is, and shall be, as the World. 
Have done with that pale chart, which drowning men 

x 



306 THIRTY YEARS AFTERWARDS, parti v. 

Accuse, and say they have no right to die 
Because it warned them not. Use all your wits, 
Set all your sails, and when the haven holds you 
Tell how you passed the rocks. 



CYRIL 

Your parable 
Fails by its honesty. 

FIRST LAYMAN 

I pray you, how ? 

CYRIL 

It offers much — but, in the last extreme, 
The guardian angel which it substitutes 
For our sure heritage, so sealed by deaths, 
So manifest in lives, so crowned by Time, 
Is only — one man's wits. 

FIRST LAYMAN 

You force the meaning. 

CYRIL 

Nay, but I show the fact. 



scene II. THIRTY YEARS AFTERWARDS. 307 

FIRST LAYMAN 

Yet speak more deeply ; 
We build no walls on these analogies ; 
I did but illustrate the one position. 

CYRIL 

And I, the other. 

FIRST LAYMAN 

Nicely parried, friends. 
Let this be all your answer. 

CYRIL 

We are ready 
For each new version of that old assault 
Made first on Adam ; there is nothing changed 
Except the manner — ' Ye shall be as gods ' 
(For ever future) ' knowing everything/ 
Age after age it rises like the waves, 
Always another shape, but always water, 
To break against our everlasting Rock. 
Your force is in the colour of your time 
As clouds are fire at sunset, but in an hour 
Merely grey drifting vapour. When God's hand 
Has wound another turning of the skein 



308 THIRTY YEARS AFTERWARDS, part iv. 

We shall have passed these knots, and men shall see 

How doubtful were the reasons for the doubts 

Which vexed their grandfathers, alas, devising 

Doubts for themselves which shall not prick their sons. 

So, to the last, we fail ; so, to the last, 

Among us all the Lord walks evermore 

With eyes of patient power that mark their own ! 

Meantime we fight the fronting foe, and answer 

That we confess our ignorance and faith 

The very ground and limit of our being ; 

Not knowing God, nor man, nor life, nor death ; 

Well knowing how to live and how to die, 

What we may hope and Whom we have believed ; 

And we are bold to say, you know no more. 

Why do you talk of guidance? Where is yours ? 

Beyond your reason as beneath our trust 

Impenetrable darkness spreads itself; 

What can you show us in the abyss, where we 

Go down to meet the Everlasting Arms ? 

Leave off your ceaseless negative, proclaim 

The thing that is, let us behold your creed, 

And give us something in the place of Christ. 



scene II. THIRTY YEARS AFTERWARDS. 309 

markham (in the vestibule) 
How the voice rings, and summons as it rings 
A long procession from the unceasing Past ! 
O, I am listening with my youth again, 
And all that has been is about to be — 
Take me away from this ! 

SEAFORD 

You would not care 
To tread the path anew ? 

MARKHAM 

What man could bear 
His Past to be his Future ? Fve not strayed 
Further than others, but I hear him show 
The straight path to the shining goal, as still 
He showed it ere we started. — O, great God, 
Undo my life and give it back to me ! 
It was all then, and it is nothing now ; 
A fragment at Thy foot. 

SEAFORD 

If it lie there 
It shall be gathered. 



310 THIRTY YEARS AFTERWARDS, part iv. 

MARKHAM 

Who has taught you that? 

SEAFORD 

There's the old voice — I know you now — you seemed 
Strange to my memories. In our early days 
Your sympathies had been with Cyril's foe 
And not with Cyril. 

MARKHAM 

Yes, I know it all. 
I have fought that fight, and finished all that course, 
And at the end, in my crowned weariness, 
Have lifted empty hands and searching eyes, 
But neither Heaven nor Earth has answered me : 
How should they ? Not for such as I the night 
Breaks into Angel faces, with a shout 
The Christ is born ! 

SEAFORD 

You were not wont to feel 
So keenly. I have heard you celebrate 
The calms of Reason. 



scene ii. THIRTY YEARS AFTERWARDS. 3: 

MARKHAM 

I have lived in them 
Till the storm came. 

SEAFORD 

And then ? 

MARKHAM 

To die in them 
Were easier. See, my friend, the ring is round 
And men walk on for ever. There's content 
For the strong Intellect, athirst for work, 
And filled with it, and wanting nothing else ; 
Set him aside, he is but half a man, 
Or lives with half his manhood, feeling not 
That throbbing of the great wound of the world 
Against his heart, in silences of night 
And brief day-pauses, which being felt, may grow 
Till it possesses night and day, and makes 
Labour a pain and rest a sin. But they 
Who in their powerless knowledge are complete 
Like doctors who can analyse the death 
That slays them, lo, they turn from side to side 
Escaping not. One hugs the Thought and spurns 
The Fact which gave it ; one receives the Fact 



312 THIRTY YEARS AFTERWARDS, part i v. 

But shapes it to his taste ; one starts away 

From some sharp truth which might have pierced his soul 

And catches at another, soft to him 

Not by its own but by his difference ; 

And all cry out because the Stars are pale, 

Forgetting what the darkness were without them. 

All weak alike, unhappy comforters, 

Who scorn the lame man for his homely staff, 

But cannot make him walk. 

SEAFORD 

I half perceive 



Your meaning. 



Unknowing. 



MARKHAM 

Hark — he speaks to us again 



cyril (in the hall) 
Take it in a word — the man 
Cries out for God ; if he be perfected 
He can have perfect answer— but if not 
Why let him grasp the Hand that beckons him 
And so grope onward till he find the Face. 
Not mind, not heart, nothing but man himself, 
The whole of him, with great capacities 



scene ii. THIRTY YEARS AFTERWARDS. 313 

Unfilled, and longing hopes unsatisfied ; 

With mighty loves, immeasurable fears ; 

Outsoaring joys that have no place to rest ; 

Eyes which Earth wearies, but which look for Heaven ; 

Ears which perceive all discords, and expect 

Some deeper never-ceasing harmony • 

Arms which relax their trembling hold on Death 

And would embrace Eternity ; and powers 

In germ, which cannot ripen here — he, he, 

Demands a creed. O, give him promises, 

Glimpses of light, and mysteries of hope, 

Whispers of fire that touch him everywhere, 

Vast incomplete suggestions, oracles 

Still undeclared, commands to be fulfilled 

But not interpreted, that he may know 

It is a God that speaks, that he may feel 

Heaven's twilight on his face before the dawn ; 

But build no tabernacles for him here, 

Where he is not to dwell ; content him not 

With fading noons of Earth, let Reason stand 

Amazed, dissatisfied, submissive here ; 

For these confused beginnings of his life 

Forestall not their clear end ; he dimly sees 

The depths that he shall enter, words plain now 

Are not the language of another world, 



314 THIRTY YEARS AFTERWARDS, part iv. 

And whatsoever things are fully known 

Are false, for knowledge cannot compass Truth. 

FIRST LAYMAN 

How touches this the argument ? 

CYRIL 

Why, even thus ; 
Faith is the only obstacle to faith, 
The barrier is the threshold — we believe not 
Because if we believe — we must believe ! 
Nothing but this, although the names be legion ; 
And, this refusal over, we may frame 
For our uneasy hearts a thousand faiths 
All without evidence : like one who draws 
A magic circle round him and is safe 
In fancy, girt by threatening images 
And pressure of strange phantoms, while he thinks 
If once he cross the ring, he perishes ; 
But let him cross it, lo, the blinding smoke 
Melts from his eyes, the wide earth welcomes him, 
He goes among the glorious distances 
And feels the breezes and the lights of heaven ! 
* Only not that/ (so said he) ' only not 



scene II. THIRTY YEARS AFTERWARDS, 315 

The music of my childhood ' — but it comes, 
God grant it comes not late, and there is peace. 

markham (in the vestibule) 
It has come now and peace shall follow it. 

SEAFORD 

You find him eloquent ? 

MARKHAM 

It was his wont 
To conquer all his foes by sympathy ; 
He sits at your heart, and so the strings must answer. 
I wonder when he was a sceptic. 

SEAFORD 

Never. 

MARKHAM 

Well, 1 know that, yet even his anger reads 
What it rejects ; still he says c we ' not ( you/ 
And claims his brotherhood with all he hates. 

SEAFORD 

They touch on practice now. 

MARKHAM 

Let us attend. 



316 THIRTY YEARS AFTERWARDS, part iv. 

second layman {in the hall) 

But, how to stir this jelly-sort of man ? 
He sits among his reverend tentacles 
Reaching for all the comforts, and is calm, 
And tells us he is founded on a rock 
(Which we believe, but want to move him from it). 
Show him the sorest need, the plainest cure, 
If it means work he'll say, l There would be risk,' 
Or, ' Nay, my friends, no zeal ! Enthusiasm 
Is ever digging pitfalls for the blind ; 
.Let us be reasonable. 7 You might think 
That martyrs ran no risks before they died, 
And saints achieved their crowns without a tear, 
And great Apostles won a world for Christ 
With no more toil than lilies of the field 
Content with blooming. Say, what would you do 
With such a placid leader ? 

THIRD LAYMAN 

Let us have him ; 
The healing of some brief monotony 
Is all we need — we'll make a fair exchange ; 
Our man's a Gladstone, breathing novelties 



scene ii. THIRTY YEARS AFTERWARDS. 317 

At every pore ; under his restless hand 

The sweet oldfashioned certainties are gone 

And no man guesses when he goes to church 

What strange device shall flout him from his prayers, 

What grievous music shall afflict his ears, 

What fancy-dresses mask the quiet walls 

Or drape the ungainly shepherds — yet he works : 

I grant him that. Would he were sooner tired ! 

FIRST CLERIC 

O, if he works it shall be well with you ; 
Labour is life ; still waters grow impure, 
But air and action, winnowing the depths, 
Maintain a healthful crystalline. 

THIRD LAYMAN 

Your rule 
Holds strange conclusions. Work is life — or death ; 
But there's a trifling difference — as much, 
Some might say, as between martyrdom and murder. 
Is there no refuge from these working men 
Who make the parish their laboratory, 
The flock their corpus vile ? What care we 
If ten years hence, being fully educated, 



318 THIRTY YEARS AFTERWARDS, part iv. 

He says reflectively, ' How well I see 

Where I went wrong, preferring small to great !' 

We see it now, and are not satisfied 

To be his matter for experiment. 

I say, is there no refuge? Government 

Is dying everywhere, and our rich laws 

Are merely bars to action, having grown 

To such luxuriance that they tangle us 

Whichever way we step. 

CYRIL 

Our remedies • 
Lie ever at our feet — we tread them down 
Rushing afar for help. 

THIRD LAYMAN 

If that were so 
The body should be sounder. 

CYRIL 

So it should 
If we were wiser, but each patient spurns 
His proper cure. Systems are substitutes 
(And sorry ones) for men. We want the men 
For our white harvest fields — we want the men 



scene ii. THIRTY YEARS AFTERWARDS. 319 

Always and everywhere, from first to last, 

The men, the multitudes that should be Christ's : 

We speak not in a heathen world, like those 

Who, strewed the seed two thousand years ago : 

The shadow of its growth should reach us all. 

We stand among our brothers. All the people 

Are priests and kings. What are we sent to do 

For such a flock ? To teach the ignorant, 

Rebuke the sinful, call the wanderers home, 

And minister the sacred gifts to all — 

But for the men our brothers, who should know 

From their youth up all that we come to teach, 

Whose lives should stream to Christ, whose work 

should be 
Not ours but one with ours, storming the breach 
Beside us, if they can in front of us, 
Where are they? Let the bitter disbelief, 
The cold luxurious softness of the time, 
Or its fierce daily labour, hardly sparing 
Some scanty leisure for another world, 
Answer ! Nay brothers, pardon me, the sting 
Pricks us no less — our scattered toilers miss 
Not only strength but sympathy ; the pulse 
Which passing through a thousand hearts should swell 



320 THIRTY YEARS AFTERWARDS, part iv. 

To a torrent, if it start but here and there 

Is mere hysteric. Tis grotesque to see 

The soldier at his exercise alone, 

But the drilled Army is sublime. I would 

A word could run along the ranks like fire 

And make us, one and all, cast forth our lives 

As Peter cast his net, without a hope ! 

That instantly, that only, that for once 

Should sweep away these vapours ! Nay, I am sure 

That like a great wind cleansing all the air, 

Our common work should purify itself 

From trivial claims and foolish accidents ; 

The mere necessity of joining hands 

Should smooth our steadfast march to victory 

FOURTH LAYMAN 

A. goodly vision ! Would the time were come ! 

CYRIL 

We dig for ever at the roots of evil — 

Plant but the good — it dies for want of room. 

FOURTH LAYMAN 

But how? I fix our faults upon no class; 
1 think all weak alike, myself among them ; 



I pity all the workers, and I feel 
For all the loiterers, but remedy 
Seems harder than disease. 

CYRIL 

There was a law 
In wise old Athens, that in stormy times 
The men who shut their doors and stayed at home 
Were punished, so the calmer sort was driven 
Among the fiercer, and the city throve. 

FOURTH LAYMAN 

How read you that for us ? 

CYRIL 

Why thus : our critics 
Should be our comrades ; 'tis that element 
Our blundering ardour needs. One certainty 
Speaks through all contradictions, that the world 
Wants mending; then, where'er the work begins, 
If there be faults, and human hands we know 
Do nothing perfectly, you that perceive them 
Stand not aloof, but make the greater haste 
To join and straighten them. When yesterday 
We hurled our mission week across the land, 

Y 



322 THIRTY YEARS AFTERWARDS, part i v. 

Who says there was not need ? Some feeble voices 

Talked of ' confessing failure ' — God in heaven, 

Which of Thy servants thinks he has not failed ? 

Are all men honest ? Are all women pure ? 

Is London as the New Jerusalem? 

We fail, if one resist us to the last, 

If one fall short, if one die comfortless ; 

O, if we have not failed, if this is all 

The Cross can conquer, if with such a kingdom 

Our Master is contented, eat and drink 

And die to-morrow, for there is no life 

Here or hereafter ! Well then, having failed, 

Take the child's rule and try another way, 

Try all ways, and by any means save some ! 

THIRD LAYMAN 

I hear and tremble. Wars on every side ! 
Contention seems the Church's atmosphere ; 
What chance of growth in such tempestuous seas ? 
Where is the ministry of peace ? What hope 
Is broad enough to build on ? 

CYRIL 

Crossing threads 
Make straight designs. Sages who search the skies 



scene ii. THIRTY YEARS AFTERWARDS. 323 

Find tumult in the Sun ; noise of great gales 
And unheard thunders round the birth of Day ; 
Can we believe such things ? We live in them 
And are amazed — but, as our world recedes 
Into the quiet Future, not more dim 
For us than we shall one day be for it, 
These shall cease from us, while the Ages keep 
The silence and the splendour which they fed, 
Light, calm, beneficent, resistless Light. 

ALL 

Hear ! hear ! hear ! 

CYRIL 

Bear with me still ! I have it in my heart 
To speak one word in great simplicity. 
I have perceived an evil in the times 
Which, if it grow, destroys us. 'Twas the fame 
Of England to be truer than the world ; 
With this she justified her sterner ways, 
For this we love her and would die for her 
As for a mother, whose remembered face 
Never deceived us once. But now, the work 
Is hollow, and the name is not the thing, 
The thought beside and not within the word, 
And honesty means only not to steal, 

y 2 



324 THIRTY YEARS AFTERWARDS, part iv. 

And honour, which did once pervade us all, 
Is hunted to the heights, where still she stands 
Among the nobler sort, with tremulous wings 
And feet that touch but rest not. Yet, believe me, 
Truth holds the world back from perpetual death, 
It is divine as Earth, from whose mere bosom 
Grow seasons, and great trees and tender grass ; 
So grows the life of nations out of Truth. 
Where men are false decay is natural 
And certain as the very walk of Time, 
Which halts not, though it linger. O my brothers, 
Let us who have to mould the hearts of men 
Be desperately true ! No fence nor feint, 
No seemly veil nor decent subterfuge, 
But with our bare lives in our open palms 
Let us confront the world with ( This we are ; 
' This mean and this believe ; this teach and do ; 
' And this, for we are human, leave undone, 
' Repenting and amending/ So we hold 
The crystal mirror straight, and keep it clean 
That men may see themselves for what they are, 
And feel dishonour in the least untruth 
Done without speech, to compass some good end, 
Never revealed. ■ Methinks for very shame 



scene II. THIRTY YEARS AFTERWARDS. 325 

We urge it not, being such a mere condition 

Of all things good, but, if a nation's laws 

Were writ in granite, and the language lost, 

Should not her wise men walk through all the streets 

Thundering the alphabet ? 

BISHOP 

Here let us pause 
Since the time warns us, and this final theme 
Is food for meditation, not debate. 
Let each man ponder in his homeward thoughts 
That such a witness, whom we all revere. 
Sees such a danger. Let each ask himself 
If in his recent or confronting trouble 
(Which all must have) there has been time or place 
When any dimmer spot or blunter edge 
On this first weapon in his armoury 
Needed a cleansing hand, and if he find it 
Let him be comforted, as having found 
The root and remedy of all his evil ; 
And so take timely warning, one and all, 
To keep our Christian honour sensitive ! 

\_The Congress breaks up. Cyril comes out 
into the vestibule. 



326 THIRTY YEARS AFTERWARDS, part iv. 

Scene III. 
Cyril — Markham. 



MARKHAM 



Cyril 



CYRIL 

Who calls me like the murmur of my youth 
Under the roar of time ? 

MARKHAM 

Come, will you know me ? 
Aye, spell my face — its whole vocabulary 
Lies in your name ; now your eyes warm to me, 
They did but search before, and now I feel 
Such closing of your grasp upon my hands 
As might have forced the water to mine eyes 
Were it not there before. What, Cyril, what, 
Am I remembered ? 

CYRIL 

Markham ! Not remembered, 
Possessed ! I had you always — yesterday 
We parted — nothing lies between but time 



scene in. THIRTY YEARS AFTERWARDS. 327 

Wherein love grows. Why are you here ? Whence 

come you ? 
But that's no matter since I have you here, 
And I'll not ask if you come home with me 
Because you must. I saw you just like this, 
With just such sunburnt honours in your face, 
As step by step I followed all you did 
In the great gaps between your scanty words. 
Ah, friend, you should have come before, you needed 
A bath in sweet home-waters, to refresh 
Such agonies of toil. 

MARKHAM 

The same as ever : 
No man must work too hard except himself. 
I stood here while you spoke. 

CYRIL 

You heard me speak ? 

MARKHAM 

Aye, every word. 

CYRIL 

I spoke to the world's future 
And mine own past. It lay not in my dreams 



328 THIRTY YEARS AFTERWARDS, part iv. 

That you were judging. Come, friend, tell me truly 
Has my speech mended as your judgment has 
Since those hot days when you believed in me ? 

MARKHAM 

No, not a jot. 

CYRIL 

You will not flatter me ; 
Have the years taught me nothing ? 

MARKHAM 

O, you have learnt 
Whole dictionaries, but the man who speaks 
Is still the same ; a little further up 
The mountain way, but not too far for stretching 
His hand down to the children. Let me see you ! 
These lines, these paler tints, this silver, seem 
Completion not decay. Your life has been 
As a long music, where the final bar 
Grows from the first, and not a note is finished 
Till all are heard. 

CYRIL 

I would not have it so ; 
My life should be a Prelude where each note 



scene in. THIRTY YEARS AFTERWARDS. 329 

Suggests the coming strain which Death begins. 
I have known such lives. 

MARKHAM 

Alas, in thirty years 
How many of the lives we knew have ceased ! 
You kept your Mother long ? 

CYRIL 

God cloistered her 
In gentle limits ere He called her home : 
To failing ears we speak no words but love ; 
Dim eyes perceive no darker shades, and life 
Filtered by care and time and distance comes 
To feeble lips without its bitterness : 
So, on the pillow of her years she slept 
Before she died. 

MARKHAM 

You watched her to the last ; 
And Lady Blanche? 

CYRIL 

She had a kindly whim 
To make me godfather to all her babes. 
I am pledged for nine. 



330 THIRTY YEARS AFTERWARDS, part iv. 

MARKHAM 

Protect me from my friends ! 

CYRIL 

Loose not my hand — your eyes must tell me more ; 

Use grows so fast that ere a week is gone 

We shall seem never sundered, and all question 

Checked and entangled by those daily films 

Which make life possible for ardent hearts 

But keep them separate ; now, for half an hour 

We are soul to soul 

MARKHAM 

I came from the far side 
Of all the world to show my soul to you ! 
Beside me, through the tossed and roaming years 
Which have been mine since last I talked with you 
In work or rest, in toil or darkness, still 
I had the vision of a perfect life : 
It did not preach to me, it looked at me 
And drew me evermore to look at it : 
I had beheld it once, and there it was 
For ever mine. It grew before mine eyes 
Slow as a picture where each touch reveals 



scene in. THIRTY YEARS AFTERWARDS. 331 

Forgotten facts, till Absence grows alive 
With Memory's intolerable sweetness ; 
Each difference that I noted was a call 
To likeness, and from every point there streamed 
Such life as by mere contact masters death. 
So was I won without an argument, 
Convinced by contemplation, beaten down 
By the soft presence of a thought, and here 
I come to tell you 

CYRIL 

Ah, she won you so ! 
How many trophies will that tender life, 
Merely by being lived, bring with itself 
At the last day ! She will not know till then, 
And she must learn it from the Master's lips, 
Else she may enter Heaven incredulous 
Like a child-queen before the retinue 
She leads unconsciously. 

MARKHAM 

She, Cyril, she ? 
Is that fair memory still so much with you ? 
O, foolish man, I am no woman's work — 
It was yourself. 



332 THIRTY YEARS AFTERWARDS, part iv. 

CYRIL 

I! 

MARKHAM 

Fighting all the day, 
And so confounded with astonishment 
At one small conquest ! 

CYRIL 

Twas the hyperbole 
Wherein you hid me ! O my friend, I know 
He may use any weapon, but that this 
Should be vouchsafed, that He should give me yo?/, 
Just the great wish, just the desponding prayer, 
Just the impossible hope ; and I so cold, 
Weak, false, forgetful, while He worked for me : 
This wonder, which He thrusts into my arms 
As suddenly as though 'twere not a crown 
To set on dying brows, that this should be, 
Makes me a child that can but weep for joy 
And stretch its hands, and grasp its precious things 
Not knowing how they come. 

MARKHAM 

Thus have I given 
The core of my large story. But for you, 



scene in. THIRTY YEARS AFTERWARDS. 333 

You have said nothing yet. I find you thus, 
After a life of labour, with no rest 
In the grey heaving distances around, 
But only toil and storm and scanty gain, 
Monotonies of peril and fatigue 
Without an, issue — are you satisfied 
With that which you have chosen ? 

CYRIL 

Here I am ! 

MARKHAM 

Will you reveal no more ? 

CYRIL 

There is no more 
To be revealed. I have no certainty 
About myself, save that God set me here 
With such a work to do, and here I am 
Doing it very badly. 

MARKHAM 

Nay, my friend, 
Be frank 



334 THIRTY YEARS AF1ERWARDS. part iv. 

CYRIL 

I speak the frankest honesty : 
No thoughtful evening comes that does not show 
Such gaps and blunders in the day's achieve 
As fill the soul with resolute remorse 
Which ought to triumph to-morrow. But I work 
Heartily and am happy, overpaid 
With love and honour which I never earned, 
Watching the growths around me, sometimes sad 
And often sanguine, so concerned with living 
I have not leisure even for self-reproach 

markham (interrupting) 
Here, and alone, and happy — in a world 
So full of all Christ died to save it from ! 
Working with such mean elements, assailed 
By such base foes, busy in such small fields ! 
O, this is not the mountain of your youth 
With its vast outlooks over heaven and earth — 
This is not like my picture ! Here in the press, 
Here in the dusty tumult, foot to foot 
With any straggler, not a star beheld, 
Not a song audible — you that were once 



scene in. THIRTY YEARS AFTERWARDS, 335 

Fed with grand airs and mighty visions, tell me 
Where are they now ? 

CYRIL 

O friend, in our beginnings 
We set the life divine a league away 
From the life human, and depart from one 
When we would seek the other, but our work 
Is to bring both together. Those are days 
Of petty fear and causeless sacrifice, 
Of c touch not, taste not, handle not ' ; perchance 
Our weakness needs them • but it is our strength 
To touch, taste, handle all that is not sin, 
Finding God's work in all, and as for sin 
To slay it with the brightness of His presence. 
So we receive our banquet ; for the body 
Not only meats but wine, and for the lips 
Not only speech but music, for the eyes 
Vast pageants of unfathomable change 
Prepared from everlasting, and for the soul 
Not only prayer and labour, but all knowledge, 
All wonder, and the garden-world of Art, 
And all the forest-paths of Poetry, 
Oceans of joy and fields of lovely rest; 



336 THIRTY YEARS AFTERWARDS, part iv. 

Man lives in many ways, but on this diet 

He grows to perfect health, takes without choice 

His Master's gift — a cross, a sword, a flower ; 

Contemns no work, refuses no delight, 

And goes rejoicing through the darkest ways 

With nothing in his heart but ' here lam!' 

This feeds me in my solitude — and more 

MARKHAM 

Your face is full of light \ Cyril, what more ? 

CYRIL 

There is the hope that I may die to-night ! 



THE END. 



337 



LOVE FOR THE YOUNG. 

Not only for yourselves, but for the years 

Which you, not knowing, bring to me anew, 

Are you so dear that I consider you 
With this persistency of quiet tears ; 

For many silent tones are in your speech, 
And dead hopes rise and tremble when you smile, 
Making me fancy for a little while 

That hands I cannot clasp are in my reach ; 
And my heart cries, i What can I do or bear 

(I that have lost so much and wept so long) ; 
How make myself your servant, to remove 
The sting and weight of this remembered Love, 

Which was my joy, but may have had some wrong 
From slights unknown ere Time had taught me care ! ' 



33* 



BISHOP PATTESON. 

An Angel came and cried to him by night, 

1 God needs a Martyr from your little band ; 

Name me the purest soul, which, closely scanned, 
Still overflows with sweetness and with light 

That find no limit till they reach the Land 
Whence first they sprang/ Weeping for what must be, 

He named them all, with love adorning each ; 

And still that Angel smiled upon his speech, 
And, smiling still, went upward silently 

Not marking any name. Amazed he knelt, 

Pondering the silent choice. But when the stroke 
Fell, not an Angel, but the Master, spoke, 

With voice so strong that nothing else was felt : 
' Thou art the man. Beloved, come to Me ! ' 



339 



A FACE FROM THE FAST. 

Out of the Past there has come a Face ; 

Wherefore I do not know ; 
I did not call it from its place, 

I cannot make it go ; 
In the night it was very near, 

And it looks at me to-day, 
With well-known eyes, so kind, so dear, 

And it will not go away. 

I am the same that I was before, 

There is nothing new to say ; 
But this is with me evermore, 

As it was not yesterday ; 
It makes the Moment vague and vain, 

And (what a wondrous thing !) 
I hear an old tale told again 

As if it was happening. 



340 A FACE FROM THE PAST. 

You talk, but scarce I understand ; 

If you but pause for breath, 
Straightway I am in that far land 

Beyond the seas of Death ; 
All living sights are dimly seen 

Across that mighty space — 
How can I tell you what I mean ? 

Tis nothing but a Face. 

friends, who think me dull or cold, 
Why do you feel surprise ? 

Have you no memories that hold 
Your weary waking eyes ? 

1 want to take all patiently, 

But I sometimes long to say, 
A Face has come from the Past to me- 
Let me alone to-day ! 



34i 



LINES ON THE GREEK MASSACRE. 

White Angels, listening all around 

The terror, wrath, and strife of men, 
For faint heroic notes that sound 

Through the mean tumult now and then, 
What^ heard ye, that your watching eyes 

Received such rapture in their calm 
As if through common agonies 

They saw the halo and the palm ? 
We only heard the bitter wail 
Of hearts that break, and prayers that fail ; 
We only saw the shame, the pain, 
Of England on her knees in vain, 
Pleading for sons ignobly slain ; 
That fruitless death, these helpless tears, 
Shall scar and stain the coming years 
With savage infamy of crime 
Thrust through our tender modern Time. 



342 LINES ON THE GREEK MASSACRE. 

On this grand soil which year by year 

Renews the unforgotten bloom 
Of deeds which Time but makes more clear 

And Deaths which nothing can entomb, 
They fell, but did not add a name 

To Earth's broad characters of gold ; 
There, in the citadel of Fame 

They died, with nothing to be told, 
While schoolboy memories thronged their ears 
With echoes from the calling years, 
And brought the happy Morning back 
As closed the darkness cold and black ; 
How fair was Life when first they read 

Of these familiar glorious themes ! 
The classic ground which holds them dead 

Was longed for in their college dreams, 
When links of light bound land to land 
Like comrades clasping hand in hand, 
As English youth, athirst for fame, 
Caught up the old Athenian flame ; 



Yet, mourners, on these nameless pangs 
Henceforth a new tradition hangs, 



LINES ON THE GREEK MASSACRE. 343 

For here, by loftier hopes consoled 

Than soothed the Demigods of old, 

By angel ministries upheld, 

By saints awaited and beheld, 

These perished not, but passed from sight 

Into the Bosom of the Light. 

For us, one tremulous sigh of prayer 

Hallows the conquest-breathing air 

More than all shouts for heroes spent 

Who died not knowing where they went. 

Here shall be told, when pilgrims come, 

How each his brother strove to cheer ; 
How tenderly they talked of home, 

How they seemed ignorant of fear, 
Patient and yet prepared for strife ; 
While one, the gentlest, turned from life 
So sweetly, that no tongue can say 
If it was rent or given away. 
And as, where loyal warriors sink, 

We, passing by the place, may pause, 
To think, not of their names, but think 

Of their great Leader and their Cause ; 



344 LINES ON THE GREEK MASSACRE. 

So, by this grave and gate of death 
Abides the murmur of a breath 
Recalling to the passers-by 
Not Marathon, but Calvary ! 



345 



'he preached to the spirits 
in prison: 

Not only in that other world, O friends, 

Do spirits sigh against their chain ! 

Not only there is long Remembrance vain, 
And Hope incapable of noble ends ! 
There is no house nor heart, no day nor night, 

Where some imprisoned thing that should be free 

Pines not unconsciously, 
Like one born blind, who knows not of the Light 

Yet weeps at sunrise. When the Preacher cries, 

And, under all the roof, immortal eyes 
Look up and listen, cries he not to these ? 
Alas ! he can but move them, as a breeze 

Moves, though it cannot turn, the coming sea ! 
But if a great Deliverer spake (we know 

He did and shall), the spirits should arise, 

His voice should change all faces instantly, 

And that vast congregation of the skies 

A A 



346 'HE PREACHED TO THE SPIRITS IN PRISON: 

Which sees God as He is, thereby to grow 
For ever like Him, should be manifest 

Here among daily men, for it is here 
Behind the bars. Then should the Love, which dies 

For those it trusts too little, cast out fear, 
Be generous and gentle, and at rest, 

And so be perfect. Then should Truth appear 
(She needs no more), and dumb appeals, which dwell 
In secret places of the heart, should swell 

To needless thunders, where all feet outrun 
Their summons. Then should every shadow cease, 

And all the sky grow tender to the sun, 
And hindrances and trifles melt away, 
Showing the soul in lineaments of peace 
Bare as a statue, where all lines betray 

Some early vision of divinity. 
As if a people, which had never heard 
Of any sound but speech, should at a word 

Shake to the birth of music, sense and power 
Coming together, all the air possest 

With unknown glory, uttering in an hour 
The grand, sweet, language of Eternity ! 



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